text:
Worlds and ideas from my mind
When My Worlds Collide
Banana Pudding, Really?
January 7, 2021 by Ernest Russell
Dr. Silas Von Rott smiled while putting the final touches on his automaton. "Yes," he thought, "when laid out on the bed, it will look just like a real little boy."
Carefully, he loaded banana pudding into the trap's squirt gun. When that tooth fairy shifted the pillow to retrieve the tooth, the banana pudding would squirt from the fingers.
He called his manservant to bring the automaton. While walking to the room he had prepared, Dr. Von Rott rubbed his hands and chuckled.
"Tonight, Mordecai, I shall become powerful. I shall bait the pillow with this tooth I purchased. Ahh, a lad after my own heart he was, all I had to do was promise him a sweet. Knocking the tooth out of some other child and bringing it to me was his idea. Delightful child. Soon, I will have a tooth fairy's wand. Do you realize what this means, Mordecai?"
Mordecai just shook his head; carrying the heavy automaton up the stairs took all his strength and concentration. Besides, whether he answered yes or no, he knew Dr. Von Rott would tell him anyway. The Doctor enjoyed expounding upon the cleverness of his ideas.
"No, of course, you don't, Mordecai. A simple fellow such as you would never grasp the sublime simplicity of my genius." Dr. Von Rott continued so swiftly Mordecai could not have answered even had he been so inclined. "As you know, when a child loses a tooth, the tooth fairy comes to collect it. They leave behind money for the tooth. Sometimes as much as a quid, and how do you think they carry it? No, I know you do not know. It is not in a wallet or purse. I can tell you that there isn't one big enough. No, they use a wand to summon the money once the tooth has been collected. Now, once I have secured the wand, I can summon all the money I wish, enough to finally create my army of clanks armed with death rays with which I can take over and rule the world!"
Mordecai shook his head a lot as he placed the automaton as the Doctor instructed. His family had served the Doctor's family for generations and this was in no way unusual behavior. Besides, the benefits were pretty good.
Automaton placed, Mordecai and the Doctor left the room. Mordecai went to his room to read while the good Doctor went to his study to determine how he would spend his soon-to-be immeasurable wealth.
Fang was so glad this was the last call. This night had been one of the roughest in memory. Screens, cats, and bug zappers – all of the troublesome things which make a tooth fairy's job less than dreamy. One child this night even dared to attempt to capture him. Fortunately, it was only a mason jar and easy enough to flutter through. Fang just wished it had been a new jar. In the short time it took to exit, he had smelled enough pickles to last him years.
There were no screens on the windows for this house. Fang fluttered through and stopped to look around the room. He did not see any teddy bears. Those guardians of childhood never bothered him, but he liked to say hello, just to be friendly. Something did not feel right.
With a shrug, he flew to the bed where a child lay fast asleep. Fang landed near the edge of the pillow. Taking just a moment to preen his whiskers and scratch his ear, he sniffed the air. Yes, there was a fresh tooth from a boy under the pillow, but there was an undercurrent of odors he did not like, banana pudding with a hint of grease. It seemed to come from the sleeping child. Perhaps the lad had simply had some banana pudding for dessert.
Slowly, with a bit of apprehension, Fang approached the pillow. He could see the tooth, just a little too far back for easy reach. The surprise came when he lifted the corner of the pillow.
A glob of banana pudding engulfed him. If not for the slight hiss as the air released, he would have been caught facing the pillow. The warning gave him a split second to turn slightly, or else he would not be able to react. The child's mouth opened, springing a cage made of false teeth.
Dr. Von Rott had been daydreaming of giant clanks marching on London when the alarm sounded. The Queen was just about to give him the crown too! But more importantly, the tooth fairy trap had been sprung. He raced up the stairs to claim his prize.
Old tooth fairies do not become old tooth fairies without having learned to survive attacks such as these, so faster than thought as the false teeth sprang forward, Fang summoned up the unusual defense he learned early in his career, a shield of vanilla wafer. Bracing as best he could, the uppers broke as he knew they must, the impact throwing him clear of the banana pudding.
He was covered in the banana pudding. This was indeed a dastardly trap. Whoever set it knew banana pudding would prevent a fairy from using their dust. Naturally, fairy dust formed a cloud around the fairy, allowing them to fly and flutter through objects, but this sticky covering kept the cloud from forming. Those false teeth, he shuddered, were the one thing which a fairy could not flutter through. It had been a close call. Fang had one last trick up his sleeve, and it did not depend on fairy dust.
Footsteps were charging up the hall. Just as the door opened, Fang used his last trick. Even many fairies did not know why they had whiskers and rounded ears. In the once-upon-a-time days, people left their children's teeth for his kind, until one day, such a tremendous amount of belief magic accumulated it turned the humble grey mice to tooth fairies. In times of great need, all tooth fairies could still take the form of a mouse.
Dr. Von Rott saw the banana pudding and broken cage on the bed. "Curses! Foiled again! And by a mouse!" he screamed as a pudding-covered mouse scurried along the sideboard.
'THE ADVENTURES OF LAZARUS GRAY VOLUME NINE'
SOVEREIGN CITY'S GREATEST HERO RETURNS! 'THE ADVENTURES OF LAZARUS GRAY VOLUME NINE' NOW AVAILABLE!!
Lazarus Gray and his partners in adventure, Assistance Unlimited, became some of the greatest heroes of Sovereign City. As the whispers of a war, a world away begin, the team finds themselves in a conflict that defies comprehension in award-winning author Barry Reese's latest volume from his own author imprint, Reese Unlimited!
THE ADVENTURES OF LAZARUS GRAY VOLUME NINE continue as Lazarus Gray and his colleagues in Assistance Unlimited are embroiled in a war that defies description and challenges them to their limits and beyond. For some, the past will be confronted, fates will be decided, old relationships will be ended, and new ones are forged with unexpected allies……And the hope of the world depends on mortals who keep stride with the gods in Barry Reese's THE ADVENTURES OF LAZARUS GRAY VOLUME NINE!
Featuring a fantastic cover by George Sellas with logo design and print formatting by Sean Ali, THE ADVENTURES OF LAZARUS GRAY VOLUME NINE is available in print for $9.99.
The ninth volume of one of New Pulp's greatest heroes will be available for the Kindle in the coming days.
If you want more information on this title, interviews with the author, or digital copies for review, email editorinchief@prose-press.com.
To learn more about Pro Se Productions, visit our website. Follow Pro Se on Facebook for all the latest news, release updates and open submissions.
.Thank you for reading,
SUBMISSION CALL OPEN FOR 'STANDOFF: COPS AND ROBBERS' ANTHOLOGY
December 13, 2020 by Ernest Russell
LAWMEN! LAWBREAKERS! DEADLOCKED! SUBMISSION CALL OPEN FOR 'STANDOFF: COPS AND ROBBERS' ANTHOLOGY
Pro Se Productions, a publisher of cutting-edge Genre Fiction and New Pulp, announces an open call for submissions to the first volume of what the company hopes to be a multivolume concept. Pro Se will now accept Short story proposals for STANDOFF: COPS AND ROBBERS.
Conflict is at the heart of any good genre story. Two sides, each with their own goals, their desires, their tactics, but both with a shared focus-to beat the other side. Often, however, it's not simply about winners or losers. Sometimes foes are evenly matched. They find themselves at a deadly impasse, unable to move forward or even escape with their lives unless someone makes a big move and takes perhaps the biggest risk of all to end the STANDOFF.
STANDOFF: COPS AND ROBBERS will feature stories about men and women on both sides of the law finding themselves in situations that seem unwinnable, standing toe to toe with their enemies, and finding themselves trapped in what appears to be a no-win scenario. Some will overcome, some will lose, and even some will all die. Every tale will be filled with pulp pounding action, intrigue, and guns blazing adventure.
Proposals for STANDOFF: COPS AND ROBBERS must include a deadlock situation between members of law enforcement and the outlaws and criminals they pursue. Stories can be set in any time period up to the modern day (No stories set in the future). These must be 'real world' stories, no elements of science fiction, paranormal, fantasy, or other such genres. Payment will be royalty based.
All interested authors should write detailed proposals for a single 10,000-word story and submit them to submissions@prose-press.com. If the proposal is accepted, the story will be due within 90 days of acceptance. With that being said, the volume WILL NOT BE SUBMITTED FOR EDITING OR SCHEDULED FOR PUBLISHING until the volume is full based on the number of accepted proposals, not completed stories.
Contact Tommy Hancock, Editor in Chief of Pro Se Productions, at editorinchief@prose-press.com with any questions.
STANDOFF: COPS AND ROBBERS will feature a fantastic cover by artist Adam Shaw.
For more information on Pro Se Productions, please check our website. To keep up with the latest news, submissions calls and new releases like Pro Se on Facebook.
Necropolis by Penn Fawn
December 3, 2020 by Ernest Russell
by Penn Fawn
by Ernest Russell
Necropolis is an exploration of life and the Afterlife. In the setting of Necropolis, there are two ways to enter the Afterlife. Die in your primary plane or seeking out "the place of no return."
The story begins as an expedition consisting of convicts, cutthroats, and scalawags. Their lure to the expedition is upon completion, and return, they will be set free from their sentences. Within this motley crew, we travel both paths to the Afterlife.
The leaders of the expedition think to have a sideline in tusks and other items. This leads to our entering the Afterlife by death. Daniel, one of the expedition leaders, takes three villagers out to poach elephants for their tusks. Armed with bows and poisoned arrows, Aswad, Keita, and Ossouna focus on their prey, oblivious to the attack approaching from the rear. A Shetani, a malevolent demon in the form of men, sends three lions to attack them. Seeing them approach from a distance, Daniel hides, remaining silent as the men are killed, fearing for himself.
This Shetani, Nyeusi, is himself a creature of legend in this setting. It is said he travels the portal between this life and the Afterlife at will. He is a staunch defender of animals and their environment. He is the driving force of Book One.
These three men die only to awaken on a grassy plain near a great forest. Disoriented and trying to make sense of their predicament, they are attacked and try to hide in the forest. Throughout the first part of Necropolis, we learn the basic ground rules of the Afterlife through their eyes.
Meanwhile, the five members of the expedition, Ali, Asfar, Daniel, Sodom, and Penal, set out to find a mythical city and its treasures, including the fabled world's largest diamond – Necropolis.
They have received dire warnings; the only entrance is through the "place of no return." After an arduous journey, they arrive in the other side of the Afterlife, the Underworld.
As these eight men seek refuge or a means of saving their souls, they learn the Necropolis is real. Imbued with magical powers, and in the hands of The Necromancer, it's their only key to salvation.
Penn Fawn creates a vivid image of an Afterlife you don't learn during the religious education of any religion I am familiar with. Yes, there are burning lakes of fire, and these are just the beginning of the horrors. Penn is a very imaginative and profound writer creating a world and characters which will make you think and question.
On the surface, Necropolis appears to be a grimdark fantasy, and it is but is more than horror. Nyeusi is an environmentalist of infernal proportion. Read carefully, and you will find his motivations come from protecting the land and its denizens from those who would harm it. Those who come to the Afterlife from other planes have no hunger, no thirst. They hunt for sport and killing, not for meat or sustenance, for it tastes terrible and makes them sick. They clear forests to leave their imprint and do not try to live in harmony with nature. All of this is anathema to Nyeusi.
I strongly recommend the book for its compelling story. Yet, this would not be an honest review if I did not share some of the issues I found while reading it.
Transitions in point of view are, in places, abrupt—last sentence in one paragraph to the first sentence of the next paragraph abrupt. I had to reread a couple of times to make sure I had not missed anything.
The copy editing leaves something to be desired. The content is good but loses some of its shine for the typos and dropped words. They are not enough to stop reading the story, but they stand out as you read.
My final observation is this an entertaining, imaginative, creative, and insightful look at the Afterlife and well worth the read.
Ernest Russell
DISCLAIMER: I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for writing a review. I was not obligated to give a positive review, and all thoughts are my own.
Image by Comfreak from Pixabay
Twiddle, diddle, piddle,
Round and round they go,
Seeking to and fro,
Encircling the middle.
Glorious appendage,
Following your track,
First here, then back.
Secret patience of the Sage.
Not a finger, but a thumb,
Helping the day,
Passing on its way.
How I wish I had some rum.
Encircling the middle,
Seeking to and fro.
Piddle, diddle, twiddle.
Musings of a Space Geek
November 19, 2020 by Ernest Russell
All of my life, I have been a space geek.
This Sunday, I witnessed another historic event in the journey beyond our planet.
REF: KSC-107-69PC-442. APOLLO 11 LIFTOFF
The earliest space flights I can recall are the flights of Gemini IX and Gemini X in July of 1966. Those memories are of animations on the news: details of the capsule, the arcs of its orbits, and what was supposed to happen for them to land. It lit my young imagination as brightly as the flare from the Titan II which launched it.
Apollo came next. Its mission, to take us to the moon. Humans have long had a desire to travel to the moon.
In the ancient Chinese myth of Chang'e, a woman banished to the moon for drinking an elixir of immortality meant for another. This myth was referenced during the Apollo 11 mission. While Michael Collins orbited the moon alone in the command module, flight controller Robert Evans told him the story of Chang'e and how she lived on a moon with a white rabbit. Michael Collins replied he would keep an eye out for her.
Lucien, a Syrian-Greek from around 125 BCE, wrote of space travel. The story, a part of his journeys throughout the Mediterranean, tells how he and 50 companions are lifted by waterspout to the moon. There to be greeted by a race of three-headed vultures. They end up fighting a war with another alien species. After fighting beside the three-headed vultures and winning the war, preventing the aliens from conquering the moon, they find a way home. Lucien's tale is the earliest known piece of fiction depicting a form of space travel, a moon landing, an alien invasion, and an interplanetary war.
The Rigveda from India can be cited as an early source of these same concepts. The difference between Lucien's story and the Rigveda and Lucien's tale, his was not written as a religious text.
Jumping ahead in time, bypassing many other references, I want to point out Jules Verne's "From the Earth to The Moon." This futurist accurately predicted so many things regarding our modern trip to the moon: the use of retro-rockets, capsules splashing down in the ocean, lunar module, and more. Verne turned to his brother for help with the math of the moon shot. Based on the available knowledge, he was very close to escape velocity, orbital trajectories, and choosing the best geographic locations to best launch the rocket. The book's chosen launch site is only ninety miles north of Cape Canaveral. And yes, he got a couple of things wrong, acceleration being one of the biggest.
All of these dreams and stories serve a purpose. They provide hope and purpose, along with a sense of adventure and discovery. They tell us there is a potential our species can still obtain.
"The Man Who Sold the Moon" by Robert Heinlein is the story of one man's dream and how he makes a difference by fighting for his vision and, in doing so, pushes the human race to reach its potential.
During the mid-twentieth century, these dreams culminated in the Apollo missions. I was among the millions of people worldwide glued to our televisions on July 20, 1969. I watched every newscast I could. The same men who told me about Gemini were now telling me about Apollo: Walter Cronkite, the most trusted voice in America, narrated the events, while Paul Harvey told us the rest of the story.
A year later, these same men kept me on the edge of my seat during the Apollo 13 mission. We all held our collective breath as these three men fought for their lives in the harshness of space. Hope was as thin as a razor's edge. As we know, they returned safely. At the time, the tension was palpable. But the near-disaster served some critical purposes, including these two: it prompted a reconsideration of the propriety of the whole effort by the civil space program, and it planted in the popular mind the technological genius of NASA.
My favorite Apollo mission happened in July and August of 1971. Apollo 15 carried the Lunar Rover. After that, every car I rode in for years was a lunar rover.
Skylab. Launched on May 14, 1973, this was a milestone event. A space station! How far could the apartments in space from my favorite stories be? Skylab had some early teething pains. Problems with the launch caused two crucial issues – pieces, including a meteorite/sunshield, broke off, and the solar array didn't deploy properly. Again, NASA's technical genius of the day came to the forefront, and a mission was dispatched to repair the station.
The final mission to Skylab was launched on November 16, 1973. The station slept for four years. Placed in what was expected to be a stable orbit, it was discovered in 1977 the orbit was decaying as a result of greater-than-predicted solar activity. Skylab plunged to a fiery death on July 11, 1979, spreading debris across the Indian Ocean and over parts of Western Australia.
Not long after Skylab was put to sleep, the world received another glimmer of hope. The United States and the Soviet Union had reached a tenuous détente in the Cold War. In July 1975, we saw the first international effort designed to test the rendezvous and docking systems' compatibility. The goal was to open the way for possible international rescue missions and future joint missions.
Significant science did not occur on this mission. Instead, it was symbolic of the lessening tension between the two superpowers. This was the final flight of an Apollo spacecraft. At the time, I really did not understand the ramifications of that. All I saw was spacecraft from two countries being able to meet and have the crews shake hands. All it meant to me was a future was possible.
A couple of years passed before another manned venture was underway. It was so exciting to watch the first space shuttle roll out of the hanger. The crew of my favorite TV show, "Star Trek," was there for the christening. A spaceship named Enterprise had my head dancing with visions of new planets, colonies on Mars, and more. The letdown was pretty sharp when I realized this was a test vehicle and would never go to space. I wanted so badly to see a ship named Enterprise in orbit.
Still, on April 12, 1981, I came out of my chair and bounced around my living room when Columbia had a successful lift-off. This was beginning to look more like the science fiction I loved.
On January 28, 1986, I was working for Terminix. It was a routine morning, performing a regular pest control visit. The customer had her television tuned to the launch of Challenger. Her crew represented all of us, a cross-section of the population in terms of race, gender, geography, background, and religion. I stopped work for a moment to watch. I stood in the kitchen, a marbled yellow countertop between me and the television in her den. The exhilaration of the launch caused my heart to beat a little faster.
Exhilaration turned to anguish as the single white plume became a fireball, splitting the pillar upon which they were meant to rise. Tears rolled down my cheeks for the rest of that day.
After the smoke cleared and the lessons were learned, I continued watching the launches as they came. If I couldn't watch live, I set my VCR to record them. I laughed when Endeavor repaired the Hubble Telescope. The image of a powerful satellite wearing glasses like I did, struck me as a cosmic joke.
The International Space Station. Many countries, coming together to further our presence in space. That rolled over and over in my mind, conjuring images from the 1940s and 1950s of possible space habitats. I was slightly disappointed that it was not the classic ring station, as seen in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Yet, looking at it this past Monday, it could have been an alien city in space as it hung suspended above the Earth, the sun reflecting the solar panels.
I was able to watch as the shuttles took supplies and modules to the station. The thought of regular traffic between the Earth and a Space Station was almost surreal. At the time, I thought this was science fiction coming to life. Then came the demise of my beloved space shuttle.
Columbia launched January 16, 2003. The news that a suitcase-size piece of foam had broken off and struck a wing brought tension and anxiety to spaceflight not truly felt since Apollo 13. Would this ship, the oldest in the fleet, survive re-entry? No one could say with certainty.
Foam had broken off of the main tank in previous missions. But none had ever struck the leading edge of the wing. Engineers believed catastrophic failure was likely. As with the Endeavor, NASA managers did not listen to them. They thought even if there were significant damage, nothing could be done.
That brave crew all climbed aboard Columbia on February 1, 2003. At 8:55 a.m., 231,000 feet above the California coast, came the first indications of trouble. Heat-resistant tiles on the leading edge of the left wing had indeed been damaged or lost. Wind and heat entered the wing, and it simply blew apart. I bawled. For the people, for the ship, for our future in the sky. I watched Columbia's first flight, and I witnessed her last. The saddest part? It could have been prevented.
In August 2003, an investigation board issued a report revealing that it would have been possible either for the Columbia crew to repair the wing's damage or for the crew to be rescued from the shuttle.
The Columbia could have stayed in orbit until February 15. The shuttle Atlantis's already-planned launch could have been moved up as early as February 10, leaving a short window for repairing the wing or getting the crew off of the Columbia. She might have gone down in flames, but the crew would have survived.
Shuttle flights shut down until July 26, 2005, when Discovery was launched. On July 27, 2011, Atlantis made the final flight and ended an era.
The spirit of "The Man Who Sold the Moon" showed itself on June 21, 2004. We saw the successful flight of SpaceShipOne. The first privately-owned craft to cross the Kármán line, the accepted point of entry in space as defined by the International Astronautical Federation. And it did so three times. Now, there are plans for regular tourist service to the edge of space aboard SpaceShipTwo. While there have been drawbacks and setbacks, there have been many successes.
The real breakthrough, for me, was the launch of Resilience. Straight out of science fiction. A commercial enterprise has developed a reusable rocket capable of delivering payloads, and now people, into space. While early results were literally hit-or-miss, the recovery system has evolved to a point where it has become almost routine for SpaceX to recover its launch vehicles.
SpaceX is already working on its next generation of spacecraft, Starship, designed to be a fully reusable system capable of carrying crews and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon, and even Mars. I can only hope it achieves its full potential.
As I muse on these achievements, I can't help but draw some similarities to Heinlein's "The Man Who Sold the Moon." A broad stroke comparison between Heinlein's protagonist Delos D. Harriman and Elon Musk is easy to make: both are successful businessmen, somewhat ruthless in achieving their goals. Heinlein's story follows the economic elements regarding problems related to financing a feat that people of his time believed belong to the realm of science fiction and examines the steps and pitfalls required to achieve what he wants.
In Musk's case, he faces many of the same problems, with one difference. Everyone knows it possible to go to the moon. Still, the common knowledge when he began was flights to the moon were the governments' province. Private enterprise was simply incapable of accumulating the resources and raising the capital, even with government subsidy.
Heinlein faced the challenge of conveying the social conventions and norms of a strange cultural background. Did he do it? Yes, beautifully, without resorting to the brain dumps, which were typical for the time.
The culture he envisions has a technological background that creates, shapes, and sustains the culture he is describing. He then populates this world with people both recognizable and at the same time, a product of this culture.
In our reality, though, we humans chase power and advantage. We build cultures of fear to the point we become strangers to ourselves. As a society, we claim to seek the truth; truly, we have lost our own inner truth. Living in a crazy state of constant self-doubt and social positioning, we miss the obvious and simple joys.
In our culture, everyone is expected to make their mark by gaining an advantage, by invoking fear, persuading others of a problem – then marketing themselves as the answer. Because we buy into this, we have created a burdened world where problems beget problems, and they are inflated continuously by those who would sell the solution. As a result, instead of coming together to solve the problems, we become more polarized. We are living on top of a cultural atomic bomb.
The protagonist in Heinlein's story has one objective. He wants to visit the moon. He does everything in his power to push humanity to the moon and perhaps beyond. Yet, in his world, he may be the one man who never sets foot on the moon. It is a poignant story.
We have a choice. We can work together to ensure we have a future here and among the stars. Or we can set off the bomb.
I know which one I choose. Do you?
As a tribute to the brave pioneers of Apollo 13, Endeavor and Columbia, I offer one of my favorite songs, Phoenix by Julie Ecklar.
Another week has passed
November 8, 2020 by Ernest Russell
Another great writing day. Crossed 15,000 words on movie novelization, got another 1,000 in on a short story, and started a new collaboration as an editor for a new writer.
Still reading Necropolis by Penn Fawn. I'm really enjoying it and look forward to writing and sharing my review.
My little friend Rocket Squirrel, we aren't well enough acquainted to use informal names, came by and sat on the windowsill for a bit. He ran along the sill and basically around the window a couple times. Up one side, across the top and down the other side, literally around the window.
The house is coming together. It will be a while with both of us working full time and having other work, but progress can be seen. We have unpacked most of the books, and it looks like we have room to purchase more books.
Downstairs at least, we are nearing a point where we can begin hanging art and other decoration soon. My partner has been much better about working on their office space than I. It's tough when my writing can be done from a wonderful overstuffed recliner by a window providing a view of the lake. Far superior to my office, which has a lovely view of the roof of my garage.
Edgar Allen Poe – Time Traveler Open Call for Submissions
THE MASTER OF HORROR AND MYSTERY TAKES ON TIME ITSELF! SUBMISSIONS CALL FOR 'EDGAR ALLAN POE-TIME TRAVELER' NOW OPEN!
Edgar Allan Poe's influence on our culture is incalculable. He invented the detective story, contributed to the development of both science fiction and the horror genre, and wrote about the only American poem everybody knows—certainly the only one popular enough to have an NFL team named after it. And now, from the creative brain of author and anthology editor Ernest Russell comes a concept that takes Poe to a whole new level. Submissions are now open for short stories to be featured in EDGAR ALLAN POE-TIME TRAVELER from Pro Se Productions!
This anthology concept comes from an old theory that notes rather curious and seemingly prophetic events in Poe's writings.
Stories in the anthology should work from the premise Poe was a frequent time traveler. While examples exist to represent only a few adventures/information he incorporated into his stories, this anthology shall feature the experiences he did not report.
• Stories can only travel to Poe's future. No grandfather paradox.
o Travel to a period can involve a historical event or occurrence but is not necessary.
o These adventures do not have to relate to any of Poe's published work.
o Allies/Companions in the story will be considered. Still, so many have been done using H.G. Wells and Nikola Tesla stories using them will not be allowed.
• Stories are not to be set within Poe's lifetime.
o One exception – because of the mysterious circumstance surrounding his death- stories involving the week prior to his death will be allowed, though limited in number.
• Any time travel method is available – Portal, Mental/astral projection, Magic, a mechanical device, etc.
• Stories can be in any genre Poe had an influence upon-Detective, Horror, Science Fiction.
 Poetry will be considered on a case by case basis and limited in the number of poems allowed.
All interested authors should request the anthology bible and then submit proposals for a single 10,000 word story to submissions@prose-press.com. If a poem is submitted, length is less of an issue, but acceptance is at discretion of the anthology editor. If the proposal is accepted, the story will be due within 90 days of acceptance. With that being said, the volume WILL NOT BE SUBMITTED FOR EDITING OR SCHEDULED FOR PUBLISHING until the volume is full based on number of accepted proposals, not completed stories.
Visit our website for more information on Pro Se Productions, or like Pro Se on Facebook for the latest announcements, news, and releases.
My Tree
In chaos there is meaning.
The meaning is there is no meaning.
The weirding of the word
Is a lie to its content.
A portion of the great Ain Soph.
The mind grapples what it cannot conceive.
In the no-thingness of chaos
Is contained the birth of all.
Order,
Born of chaos,
As chaos
It home.
All cycles,
All possible,
Extremes,
I climb the tree to live.
Looking out
Over the great mass of non-being
In the distance
Another tree.
Looking out from the tree
Is me…
The Paladin Mandates
MIKE CHINN'S LIKELY IMMORTAL PULP HERO FLIES ONCE MORE-'THE PALADIN MANDATES' DEBUTS FROM PRO SE PRODUCTIONS
"You get caught up in the slipstream of the airfights and enthralled by the origins and secret identity of Leigh Oswin … I really want to read some more about Damian Paladin …Jenny B. (PRISM UK)
Damian Paladin: aviator, an expert on the occult, and apparently ageless. Leigh Oswin: her origins as mysterious as Paladin's own. On a cold day in July during the early 1930s, their paths first cross outside a deserted airfield – and history is made. Uniting, they tackle vengeful Native American spirits, golems, a thunderbird, deadly banshees, primeval monstrosities from before time, undying pharaohs – and ultimately, even their own pasts.
Author Mike Chinn's New Pulp hero flies into adventure once more in THE PALADIN MANDATES. From Pro Se Productions.
"A ready-made pulp icon, rarely seen without his leather flying coat and jodhpurs … A loving reconstruction of cheap pulp heroics … the perfect retro-romp." Nick Setchfield (SFX MAGAZINE).
Featuring a thrilling cover and logo design by Antonino lo Iacono and print formatting by Dave Brzeski and Jilly Paddock, THE PALADIN MANDATES is available in print for $9.99.
This New Pulp story collection is also available as an eBook formatted by Brzeski and Paddock on the Kindle for only $2.99. The book is also available to Kindle Unlimited members for free.
For more information on this title, interviews with the author, or digital copies for review, email editorinchief@prose-press.com.
Please visit our website to learn more about Pro Se Productions. Like Pro Se on Facebook for all of the latest updates.
Recommended Blogs and Sites
My Sword and Shield – Eric Syrdal
Ferguson Ink – Derrick Ferguson
Pro Se Productions – Facebook
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Vicodin is one of the most commonly abused prescription pain medications today. One of the most widely prescribed medications, Vicodin and its related medications, loricet, loritab percodan, and oxycontin are opioid-based pain medications. Vicodin is a derivative of opium, which is also used to manufacture heroin. Individuals with a Vicodin addiction become deeply depressed, and their thinking, attention, and judgement become impaired. Their thoughts dwell on the next high, although they tell themselves they are still taking Vicodin for pain or to avoid the withdrawal symptoms. Individuals with a Vicodin addiction often truly feel physical pain, but it is psychologically produced.
Individuals with a Vicodin addiction crave more Vicodin and tolerate greater amounts of the drug to achieve their high. Vicodin addictes go to great lengths, even breaking the law to get Vicodin. They continue abusing Vicodin even though they suffer negative physical and social consequences. Individuals with a Vidocin addiction are often aware of thier addiction, but may be too embarrassed or stubborn to admit it.


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Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green named 2016-17 NBA All-Defensive First Team
Warriors' Draymond Green speaks at a news conference after Game 2 of basketball's NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Oakland, Calif., Sunday, June 4, 2017. (AP Photo)
OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) -- Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green has been named to the 2016-17 NBA All-Defensive First Team, the league announced.
Green has been named to the All-Defensive First Team in each of the last three seasons, becoming the first player in Warriors history to earn three such honors.
Congrats to @Money23Green on being named to the 2016-17 NBA All-Defensive First Team 💪 #DubNation
See More » https://t.co/U5OVPChLhF pic.twitter.com/m0yENy6rk5
— GoldenStateWarriors (@warriors) June 26, 2017
Green, who was also named to the All-NBA Third Team this season, tallied averages of 10.2 points, 7.9 rebounds, 7.0 assists and 1.38 blocks in 32.5 minutes over 76 games, while leading the league with a career-high 2.03 steals. The 6'7" forward became the first player to tally averages of at least 10 points, seven rebounds, seven assists, two steals and one block over the course of a season since blocks and steals were first recorded in 1973-74, while becoming the first player in Warriors history to total at least 150 steals and 100 blocks in a single campaign.
Green is a finalist for Defensive Player of the Year at Monday night's inaugural NBA Awards in New York, along with Utah's Rudy Gobert and San Antonio's Kawhi Leonard, after finishing as runner-up for the award in each of the past two seasons.
Golden State went an NBA-best 67-15 (.817) in 2016-17, becoming the first team in NBA history to win at least 67 games in three-straight seasons (67, 73, 67), and set an NBA postseason record for best single-season playoff winning percentage with a 16-1 mark (.941) en route to their second NBA title in three seasons.
Click here for more stories about the Golden State Warriors.
PHOTOS: PHOTOS: 2017 Golden State Warriors victory parade and rally
PHOTOS: Behind-the-scenes of the 2017 NBA Finals
PHOTOS: Celebrities at the 2017 NBA Finals
PHOTOS: Warriors fans 2016-2017
sportsoaklandnba finalsgolden state warriors 2017 paradenbagolden state warriors
Warriors' Draymond Green mocks Cavs with T-shirt
DubsOn7: Golden State Warriors 2017 victory parade & rally
VIDEO: Fans speculate Draymond Green 'quickie' shirt is dig at Cavs
PHOTOS: 2017 Golden State Warriors victory parade and rally

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Bentonville, Ark. - Walmart will enter the Super Bowl sales fray with Samsung LED bundles and discounts on Vizio and Philips LCDs.
The promotion, which begins this Sunday and runs through Feb. 5 or while supplies last, follows pre-Super Bowl sales events by Sears and Best Buy on Samsung, Sharp and Sony sets.
a 46-inch Samsung (1080p, 60Hz) and BD player bundle for $898, a better than $560 savings.
a 55-inch Vizio (1080p, 120Hz) for $998.
an LG HTiB with BD player for $348, a $20 savings.


Information overload on the web? Want to share what you've found? How to do without bombarding them with posts, tweets, or emails? Digital Content Curation.
There is an abundance of useful information on the web. As an instructional designer, educator, and librarian, I cannot help but want to share all that is found with colleagues and students. The real question is, how can I share all of this information without bombarding them with emails, tweets, and Facebook posts. The answer is digital content curation. From Flipboard to Bundlr, digital content curation allows you to share information found on the web in a visually pleasing and less intrusive way. A user can choose to follow you, or simply go to a link provided to find content that has been shared on a particular topic. This allows for a myriad of uses including ad hoc learning, embedding information in on-line courses, or creating a personal learning network. This session will demonstrate digital content curation applications and strategies for successful curation implementation.
According to Wikipedia, "Content curation is the process of collecting, organizing and displaying information relevant to a particular topic or area of interest. Services or people that implement content curation are called curators." "Content aggregation has been around for awhile with sites using algorithms to find and link to content…" (Rosenbaum, 2010), but with huge lists of results that are often not relevant to the searcher. Digital content curation allows an individual who is knowledgeable in a certain field or perhaps wants to learn more to curate interesting or pertinent information that they deem important. This can then be shared with others in a more meaningful and visually pleasing way than random and frequent emails.
In the past, information was only known by experts and filtered out for the rest of us. Now information is quickly available anywhere and anytime. "…People create 571 new websites every minute, tweet 175 million times per day and upload 48 hours of new video each minute."(Buck, 2014) It is important filter out this abundance of new and ever changing information to find what is useful and meaningful to our audience.
While useful, digital content creation can become extremely time consuming for the curator. It would be impossible to find every shred of information on a topic so finding the schedule and tool that work best for the curator are the first steps in successful content curation. A sample content curation schedule will be shared with attendees.
platforms. The three that will be focused on in this presentation are FlipBoard, Bundlr, and Pearltrees. These tools all allow for colleagues to either follow you on their own account, or simply click a link that you have provided to view all of the information you wish to share. These tools also allow for collaboration. You can invite contributors, allow departments to work together, or perhaps even for group projects for online courses. All of these tools have browser buttons for utilization when on the web as well. If a contributor finds content of interest, they simply click the browser button and the content will be shared automatically, allowing for quicker and easier content curation.
Flipboard is a digital personalized news magazine, available on mobile devices and web browsers. This tool allows you to create your own personalized magazines based on your interests. As you add new content, Flipboard reorganizes the information with the most recent content first. This allows for a new look each time someone accesses the magazine. These digital magazines can be shared privately or publicly. With Flipboard, you can also add social media content. A user can follow their Facebook and Twitter feeds and Flipboard will turn them into a visually appealing digital magazine. This program also allows you to search by topic and find other content feeds to follow allowing you to completely customize your Flipboard experience.
Bundlr allows the curator to create bundles on any particular topic and can contain photos,videos, tweets, web links, and documents. A user can create their own bundles or search by topic to follow other user's bundles. This program is available on the web, android, and iOS devices. Bundles can be kept private or made public for anyone to view. A new feature recently added is the ability to share images from an Instagram account.
The final option that will be demonstrated is called Pearltrees. Pearltrees is available for web, android, and iOS devices. According to their web site, "Pearltrees is a place to organize all your interests. This free service lets you organize, explore and share everything you like. Save web pages, files, photos or notes and organize them naturally." This tool also allows you to search for others trees and subscribe to them to receive updates. You can take others pearls of information and drag them to your own tree, allowing you to organize content in a way that best works for you and your audience. Pearltrees is not only useful for content curation, but can be utilized for projects. The display of this tool is much like a mind-mapping tool and the notes feature allows for better sharing of discoveries and ideas.
Lisa Craft is the Faculty and Graduate Services Librarian as well as the campus instructional designer for the Kansas State University Salina Campus. The scope of her responsibilities include supervision of library services, educating and assisting faculty in the creation of online courses, as well as training and troubleshooting the university's course management system. Ms. Craft received her Master of Library Science and MS in Instructional Technology and Design from Emporia State University. She has presented regionally and nationally on distance education and instructional technology.


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New chapter nears for Australia's headline act for a decade
Schapelle Corby has become a national fixation since her arrest.
By Rick Feneley
February 8, 2014 — 3.00am
Which version of Schapelle Corby do you buy? Hapless beauty school dropout? Persecuted Aussie tourist? Victim of a criminal conspiracy? Lying drug mule? Tragic dupe of her pot-dealing father? Magazine cover girl? Small-time bogan dope trafficker sentenced to 20 years' jail in Bali - more than some terrorists get - for stuffing 4.2 kilograms of cannabis into her boogie board bag?
Whichever version you prefer, few among us have not been party to a national fixation with Corby, the 36-year-old woman who was last night preparing for her release after almost 10 years behind bars.
Back in 2005, when Corby was 27 and most Australians believed she was innocent, three Indonesian judges did not buy her story that baggage handlers, probably in Australia, possibly in Bali, must have planted the marijuana in her bag.
Much of the immediate reaction from Australia was outrage, driven by an often ugly nationalism. Waves of tourists in Aussie-flag singlets had long laid claim to Bali as Down Under's tropical annexe, but now thousands of them were declaring in snap polls that they would boycott the island. Many wanted a recall of the millions in aid sent to help Indonesia after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. The ingratitude!
The Indonesian consulate-general in Perth received an anonymous letter containing two bullets, with a message that reportedly said: ''If Schapelle Corby is not released immediately you will all receive one of these bullets through the brain.''
In 2007 The International Journal of the Humanities published ''Seeing culture, seeing Schapelle'' by Anthony Lambert, who described Corby as ''the daughter who is Australia''. He wrote: ''Schapelle occupies the place of the mythical Australian beach girl … now trapped in a 'strange' land.''
But what has made Australians invest so much emotion in the daughter, if not of the nation, of a Gold Coast fish and chip shop owner? Why did Corby's gather so much more sympathy than other Australians held captive on foreign soil, such as the so-called Bali nine heroin mules, or David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib in Guantanamo Bay?
Is it that Corby, unlike the Bali Nine, has always proclaimed her innocence? But then, so have Hicks and Habib.
Is it that Corby's destination was Bali? Despite the 2002 Bali terrorist bombings, in which 88 Australians were among the 202 slaughtered, Indonesia remains near the top of Australians' foreign holiday destinations, second only to New Zealand.
Or could the answer be much more confronting? That Corby is the most photogenic and telegenic of the Australians trapped overseas? Would she have grabbed so much attention if she looked like Renae Lawrence of the Bali nine?
''That's a very good question,'' says Fiona Connolly, editor-in-chief of Woman's Day. ''Being photogenic certainly didn't hurt her cause. Those piercing eyes are certainly etched into the memory of many Australians …''
Donald Rothwell, professor of international law the Australian National University, does not want to venture an opinion on the reasons for the fascination. ''But I will say that if we start with David Hicks, 2001, right through to today with Peter Greste [the Australian journalist jailed in Egypt], the Corby case is absolutely the shining light of how the media placed the spotlight on her situation and that generated a lot of debate … and it created a situation where successive Australian governments have felt compelled to respond to Schapelle Corby in ways that they haven't responded to other equally meritorious consular cases.''
''An understandable conclusion but not true,'' says Alexander Downer, who was foreign affairs minister in the Howard government when Corby was arrested. ''Governments can't be driven by a media campaign.''
When Fairfax Media called on Wednesday, Mr Downer had not yet heard the news from Indonesia: Justice Minister Amir Syamsuddin had indicated he was likely to sign Corby's parole documents.
''Oh,'' Downer said, ''just in time for her to catch the movie on Channel Nine.''
In a happy coincidence for the Nine Network, it had already scheduled Schapelle, the movie, to screen on Monday night, and has since brought it forward to Sunday night.
The film is partly based on Sins of the Father, a book by Fairfax Media journalist Eamonn Duff, who concludes Corby took the rap for for her late father Mick's drug syndicate.
Mr Downer does not offer an opinion on Corby's guilt or innocence - ''How would I know?'' - but recalls: ''There were talkback radio hosts who were swearing black and blue she was innocent. Then … they changed their minds … there was huge sympathy for her to start with, and almost overnight it evaporated.
It didn't happen quite overnight, but support for Corby did collapse. By early June 2005, less than a week after the guilty verdict, only 51 per cent of Australians believed she was not guilty, a Morgan poll found. By August 2010, a Nielsen poll found only one in 10 believed Corby was innocent.
Faith in Corby may have waned, but not the fascination.
The Corby family circus fed the fixation. Schapelle's half-brother James Kisina, who who was with her when she was arrested, was jailed in Queensland in 2006 for his part in a drug-related home invasion. Then last November, he was fined for possessing cocaine.
Mercedes Corby, the loyal sister who will take Corby into her Kuta home under her bail conditions, was forced to fend off drug claims made by a former friend, Jodie Power. While Mercedes admitted smoking pot as a teenager, she would successfully sue the Seven Network for broadcasting Power's allegations.
Mercedes would also appear as a Ralph magazine cover girl in 2008 and be paid a reported $50,000 for its spread of bikini shots. It was a small fraction of the $500,000 that Schapelle could have commanded for a ''bare-all bikini shoot'', according to Sydney's Daily Telegraph. But that was back in late 2005, when Schapelle's stocks were higher.
Taste has not been a persistent consideration in this saga. Only on Thursday the Corby family denied it had ever retained Kerry Smith-Douglas as a lawyer after she went on Nine's Today show and, when asked how Schapelle would celebrate her freedom, replied: ''She'll probably pop a cork of champagne and then roll up a big marijuana joint the size of a cigar and then kick back and enjoy herself.''
Amid the seamy sideshow, many may forget the depth of their initial sympathy for Corby. Soon after the guilty verdict, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton sent a letter to the prisoner, saying: ''My heart bleeds for you.'' They were Australia's ''two most celebrated women of crime'', commentator Anne Summers wrote at the time. A dingo really had taken Azaria Chamberlain at Uluru, and now the baby's long-persecuted mother was reaching out to another apparent victim of injustice.
''Regardless of what happens to Corby, she has served a national need for catharsis and retribution,'' Summers wrote. ''She can never escape this.''
Catharsis and retribution? For the Bali bombings. The Corby verdict had become a channel for Australian anger over the sentences handed down to the bombers, including a mere 2½⁄ years' jail for the bombings' key figure, Abu Bakar Bashir, compared with Corby's 20 years for Corby, though the Indonesian prosecutors never did prove Bashir was the mastermind.
The ratings for Schapelle on Sunday night will be a measure of the endurance of the national obsession with Corby. If a freed Corby gets to see the film, it will add no cheer to her celebrations in Bali. Champagne may have to suffice.
Rick Feneley
Rick Feneley is a news and features writer for The Sydney Morning Herald. His column, Then Again, appears on Saturdays. He was the paper's long-term night editor before returning to writing in late 2008.


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Le mausolée de Lénine est un monument situé à Moscou, sur la place Rouge, où il est adossé aux murailles du Kremlin.

En son sein repose Vladimir Ilitch Lénine, révolutionnaire et premier dirigeant de l'Union soviétique. Son corps embaumé (selon une méthode exclusive) est exposé au public depuis 1924, année de sa mort.

Localisation
Le mausolée se situe au pied de l'une des tours du Kremlin, la tour Senatskaïa, sur le côté nord-est de la forteresse. Entre les deux se trouve  la nécropole du mur du Kremlin où étaient inhumées les plus hautes personnalités de l'URSS. L'entrée du monument est dans l'axe de l'entrée principale du Goum, l'ancien magasin d'État.

Historique

L'actuel mausolée a été achevé en octobre 1930 par Alexeï Chtchoussev.

Il prend la suite de deux mausolées provisoires successifs érigés également par Chtchoussev en bois de chêne, à la suite d'un concours populaire organisé dans les jours qui ont suivi la mort de Lénine survenue le . En effet, quelques jours avant la cérémonie d'inhumation (Lénine souhaitait lui-même être enterré) fixée au  à 16 heures, deux dirigeants Bolcheviks, Anatoli Lounatcharski et Leonid Krassine proposèrent de confier à une « Commission pour l'immortalisation de la mémoire de V. I. Oulianov » la responsabilité d'embaumer le corps du défunt et de l'exposer dans un mausolée qu'on commande en toute hâte. Stéphane Courtois y voit surtout le pragmatisme de Staline : .

Chtchoussev raconte dans ses mémoires qu'il fut convoqué à minuit dans la nuit du 23 au  par ladite « commission » présidée par Viatcheslav Molotov et Félix Dzerjinski qui siégeait dans la « salle des colonnes » de la Maison des syndicats pour lui notifier sa mission.

Le lendemain matin, le , Chtchoussev dirigea le marquage du terrain à l'aide de piquets. La terre gelée par le froid de -25° rendit difficile le creusement des fondations. L'usage de la bêche et du pic fut insuffisant. Une équipe de mineurs fut alors mobilisée et procéda au dynamitage du sol durant environ 24 heures, ce qui facilita grandement les travaux de déblaiements.

Durant le même temps, on chargea un groupe de savants de trouver une formule d'embaumement, mais la plupart se récusèrent, sauf deux qui acceptèrent de relever le défi : Vladimir Vorobiev, un professeur d'anatomie de l'université de Kharkov, et Boris Zbarski, un biochimiste juif qui sera par la suite arrêté en 1952, en plein complot des blouses blanches. Les deux hommes mettent au point, en quelques semaines, une solution qui remplace l'eau des tissus et qui empêche l'apparition des bactéries : ni pourrissement, ni dessèchement.

En  commença la construction d'un deuxième mausolée, plus imposant. Afin de protéger l'édifice des influences atmosphériques, on fit recouvrir les murs de laque de couleur cuivre, tandis que le toit était constitué de tôles de cuivre. Ce bâtiment fut inauguré en .

Durant la Grande Guerre patriotique (1941-1945), dans la crainte de l'avancée des troupes allemandes vers Moscou, le corps de Lénine fut mis en sûreté à Tioumen en Sibérie de 1941 à 1944. Le transfert fut effectué sous la responsabilité du  Zbarski.

Le troisième et dernier mausolée a vu sa façade principale partiellement reconstruite en 1945, afin d'y aménager une tribune officielle pour les dirigeants du parti communiste et du gouvernement.

Le corps de Joseph Staline y fut également exposé, à côté de celui de Lénine entre 1953 et 1961, mais à la suite de la déstalinisation, sa dépouille fut ensuite déplacée vers le petit cimetière situé juste derrière le mausolée et qui était réservé aux dirigeants communistes.

Après la chute de l'URSS, Boris Eltsine a tenté en vain de fermer le mausolée de Lénine dans les années 1990. De nos jours, les touristes (notamment étrangers) représentent l'essentiel des visiteurs.

Description

Le mausolée se présente sous la forme d'une pyramide à degrés d'une hauteur de  et présentant une façade de  de longueur.

Un columbarium fut aménagé au sein du mausolée, au-dessus de la salle funéraire ; il ne fut pas utilisé mais devait être probablement conçu pour les dirigeants succédant à Lénine.

Sous le mausolée, dans deux grandes salles de contrôle technique équipées d'une batterie d'ordinateurs et de tableaux lumineux qui avertissent à la moindre variation climatique ou hygrométrique. Une quinzaine de salles de garde, de sport, de repos, un minuscule musée contenant toutes les armes trouvées sur des « touristes » mal intentionnés se trouvent également sous le bâtiment. Un tunnel d'une longueur de  rejoint le Kremlin, et même un escalier mécanique fut installé en 1984 par la firme Thyssen, afin que même les dirigeants soviétiques les plus impotents, comme Konstantin Tchernenko, puissent accéder aisément à la tribune sans être portés par deux gardes.

Le mausolée est maintenu à une température de 16,6 °C, tandis que le taux d'humidité y est de 70 %.

Selon une étude publiée en 2015, après plus de 80 ans de conservation, l'état du corps de Lénine reste excellent. Néanmoins, en raison des traitements subis, notamment de la peau remplacée et de tous les organes corporels extraits, le corps de Lénine est conservé à 23 %, ce qui alimenta des rumeurs sur son authenticité. Il fait l'objet tous les deux ans d'un réembaumement en le plongeant dans des bains de glycérol, de formaldéhyde, d'acétate de potassium, d'alcool et autres produits.

Visites
L'édifice peut toujours être visité gratuitement. Il est ouvert au public tous les jours de 10 heures à 13 heures, sauf les lundis et vendredis. La conservation du corps demande effectivement des soins réguliers. Tout appareil photo ou vidéo y est interdit. Le visiteur doit faire preuve de respect et garder le silence. Avoir les mains dans les poches est aussi proscrit, tout comme porter des couvre-chefs (pour les hommes). Il y est également interdit de fumer.

Références

Articles connexes
 Nécropole du mur du Kremlin
 Mausolée de Hô Chi Minh (Viêt Nam)
 Mausolée de Mao Zedong (Chine)
 Palais du Soleil Kumsusan (Mausolée de Kim Il-sung en Corée du Nord)
 Mausolée de Sükhbaatar (Mongolie)
 Mausolée d'Enver Hoxha (Tirana)
 Spirou à Moscou (1990), album de bande-dessinée dans lequel les héros tentent d'éviter le vol du corps de Lénine.

Bibliographie

 Ilya Zbarski, À l'ombre du mausolée, une dynastie d'embaumeurs, Actes Sud, 1997.

Mausolée communiste
Monument ou mémorial en l'honneur de Vladimir Ilitch Lénine
Histoire de l'Union soviétique
Bâtiment à Moscou

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


A person has died in Townsville after contracting the dangerous soil-borne disease melioidosis amid a spike in cases in the wake of the north Queensland city's flood disaster.
Townsville public health unit acting director Dr Julie Mudd said the patient died "a couple of days ago" and that several other people with the disease remain in intensive care.
"Currently we have 10 confirmed cases [in Townsville] with one person who is deceased," Dr Mudd said.
"Not all of them needed intensive care but we have had a number of people who were significantly unwell.
Dr Mudd's latest comments come a day after she said eight people had been diagnosed with the environmental bacteria.
Contaminated soil and water can infect people with compromised immune systems.
"Melioidosis is not a disease that usually occurs in fit, healthy people — it usually comes up in people who have chronic disease or conditions that impair their immune system," Dr Mudd said.
Dr Mudd said health authorities usually treated seven or eight cases of melioidosis a year.
"The wetter the season, the more cases we see, so we were anticipating an increase in cases in response to this event," she said.
She said the risk of contracting the disease could continue for the next few months as contaminated soil is displaced.
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Bassmnt is the most exciting underground nightclub to hit the San Diego Downtown scene, and the newest member of the Identity family. Raw and edgy, Bassmnt is a uniquely designed venue perfectly blending cutting edge audio visual technology with a rugged ultra modern feel in an incredible historic property. With three rooms of endless energy and intense musical pulse, it is the new home of EDM in San Diego. In all areas of the club, whether it is on one of the multiple dance floors or in the VIP sections, Bassmnt Nightclub gives guests the perfect combination of a playful atmosphere with an extraordinary touch of ambiance.


Thanks to Movearoo, your big move doesn't have to stress you out. Movearoo can save you time and money by helping you track down the best deals on Chevy Chase Internet and TV services. Information on home services is just the start. Movearoo also connects you to resources like moving guides and checklists that will give you the assistance you need to get you through your next move.


Stock # M5927, 5272 mi.
2014 Ktm 690 Duke 2014 Ktm 690 Duke, with less than 6k miles, pretty much brand new! Where are you going to stumble upon a nicer Vehicle at this price? Nowhere, because we've already looked to make sure* Barrels of fun!!


Lee Pollock will be discussing the relationship between Winston Churchill and Cuba. Image provided by Tampa Bay History Center.
On November 20, 1895, a young British cavalry officer arrived in the port of Havana, Cuba. His name was Winston Spencer Churchill and he was ten days away from his 21st birthday. Cuba was ablaze with rebellion against centuries of Spanish rule.Winston Churchill was no ordinary 2nd lieutenant – he was the scion of a great aristocratic family and a grandson of the Duke of Marlborough.
The eighteen days Churchill would spend with Spanish forces in Cuba transformed his life. It was his first experience in combat and his first public recognition, in both North America and Britain. His accounts from the war zone were published in major newspapers and launched his career as a celebrated journalist, writer and historian. It was his true coming-of-age which set the stage for his life as a politician, statesman and iconic leader.
Fifty years later, Winston Churchill returned to Cuba and Florida as the most famous man in the world, the roaring lion who led Britain to victory in the greatest conflict the world had ever known. In the two months he spent in Florida, he wrote one of the most important speeches of the 20th century, which defined the geo-political landscape of the world for the next forty years.
Join acclaimed historian and writer Lee Pollock as he reveals the little-known story of how Winston Churchill's experiences in Cuba and Florida shaped the life of a towering figure of history.
Pollock is an acclaimed writer and speaker on the life of Sir Winston Churchill and a Trustee and Adviser to the Board of The International Churchill Society where he previously served as Executive Director. His articles on Churchill have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New Criterion and other publications.
Florida Conversations is free and open to the public. It is underwritten by the Tampa Bay History Center Endowment Fund at USF with media sponsorship from WUSF Public Broadcasting. The series is co-sponsored by the USF Libraries and the Tampa Bay History Center.
For more information, go to https://store.tampabayhistorycenter.org/#/SpecialEvents/FloridaConversation1 to RSVP for free!


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Josh Vinen
Josh Vinen is a 31 year old amateur actor from Melbourne. He started his career in Western Australia in a little coastal town called Karratha. Whilst working in the oil and gas industry he realized he had a passion for acting. He started studying acting with Synergy entertainment in Karratha. He also appeared in several short films around WA and one feature film called 'Looking for Grace'. He successfully played Dr. John Cristow in an amateur play in Karratha called 'The Hollow' in 2015.
Over the last few years Josh has attended workshops, accent classes, voice lessons and went on an 'acting boot camp' in LA where his skills excelled. Mid 2017 Josh touched back down in his home town of Melbourne where he has been involved in several short films, advertisements, Virtual reality Training videos, amongst other things. He is vigorously working on his craft attending as many workshops as he can while also getting private tutoring for acting and voice. With a show reel that is constantly evolving, Josh is now ready to embrace greater opportunities to further the progression of his craft and achieve his goal, which is to be a successful working actor. He is also writing his own screen plays and scenes which he intends to act in and produce. Josh enjoys snowboarding, motorbikes, traveling, cooking and is also currently learning Spanish.
Voice Reel


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Arunachal Pradesh: Muslim miscreants deface Parshuram Kund wall with Islamic symbols during Makar Sankranti mela
"Kumbh of Poorvottar Bharat" or the "Parshuram Kund Makar Sankranti Mela", there are thousands of participations in the Holy Festival where the moon and the stars come up on the stone wall near the holy bathing ghat of Parshuram Kund in Arunachal Pradesh
by Dibya Kamal Bordoloi
in Bharat, Arunachal Pradesh
Itanagar: The Parshuram Kund Makar Sankranti Mela in Arunachal Pradesh is known as the "Kumbh of Poorvottar Bharat". Thousands of devotees participate in the holy festival yearly despite the harsh weather.
During this year's famous Parshuram Kund Makar Sankranti Mela in Arunachal Pradesh, many incidents of theft have come to the fore. It is essential to mention here that most of the families of the Muslim Community are engaged in the Yatra as Safai Karamcharis. The administration gives them authorised identity cards to enter the festival areas.
During this year's fair, when Baba Harisharandas ji Maharaj, the Mahant of Parshuram Temple, woke up in the morning and sat outside his room, he saw some suspicious persons entering the temple. He immediately called other disciples and walked towards the temple.
Till then, a miscreant ran away after picking up the donation currencies from the temple. However, the other two miscreants were caught. The identity of both of them being Muslim has come to the fore and has created panic among the local devotees.
The legendary Parshuram Teerth is slowly coming under the shadow of fear and potential insecurity. Today's incident is serious before any significant incident happens in future. Who are the contractors who invite these people on the yatra, and who send them here in the name of duty is a matter which needs to be disclosed. There should be a high-level inquiry into this.
And many other developments need to be noted. Every year the pilgrims believe in throwing wet clothes after their bath. People of this particular community used to pick up these spare clothes. But this year, there have been incidents of the disappearance of even dry clothes which some passengers had kept on the ghat to wear after bath.
People from the families of these so-called sanitary workers sit like beggars even on the way to the ghat. After the Mela, it is witnessed that all such collected goods, clothes and grains are carried in vehicles by them.
Every year there are incidents of pickpocketing in the Mela. It is noticeable that during this year, the number of such incidents has increased. Also, this year another objectionable incident has come to the limelight. Moon and star symbols have also come up on the stone wall near the holy bathing ghat of Parshuram Kund.
All these incidents are indicators of upcoming severe problems for the future of the famous Parshuram Kund and its equally famed Makar Sankranti Mela, which takes place every year. Prevention and action need to be taken by the administration as soon as possible, and at the same time, awareness among the local society is also the need of the hour.
Topics: Parashuram Kund Makar sankrantiKumbh of Poorvottar BharatArunchal PradeshKumbh melaMakar Sankranti MelaMuslimBharatmuslim community
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text:
Abel W. Daugherty
DAUGHERTY, MCKEEVER, COOK, ELLSWORTH, STOUT, KNAPP, FARLEY, LOETSCHER, EIGHMEY, KNIGHT
Posted By: volunteer transcriber
Abel W. Daugherty was born in Spencer, Medina County, Ohio, June 1, 1834, being the eighth of a family of thirteen children – three girls and ten boys. His ancestors were of Scotch-Irish descent. His father's father, William Daugherty, having been born in Ulster, County Antrim, Ireland, while his father's mother, Ellen McKeever, was born just across the North Channel, in Scotland. His maternal ancestors were of pure Scotch descent, all of his ancestors were Protestants and Methodists, those of his father having been converted under the preaching of Brother John Wesley's helpers, and both had seen as well as heard Mr. Wesley preach. The parents of the father of Mr. Daugherty emigrated to this country in about the year 1794, and settled in Bennington, VT., where his father, Charles Daugherty, was born, October 3, 1797. The family subsequently removed to Webster, Monroe County, New York, and in 1833 the parents of the subject of this sketch, with a family of seven children – two girls and five boys – moved to Spencer, Ohio. The journey having been made by teams to buffalo, N.Y., thence by vessel on Lake Erie to Cleveland, and thence again by teams through a densely timbered country to their new home, about forty miles southwest of Cleveland. On the latter part of the journey their only guides, for a greater portion of the distance, was the "blazed" forest trees, marked by the axe of the surveyor, while the party camped by night and did their cooking in the open air in primitive emigrant fashion. Arriving at their destination, a log cabin was speedily erected, which afforded the parents and their increasing family shelter for many years after.
The childhood days of Mr. Daugherty were passed on his father's farm, and he grew to manhood as the large forest trees were falling before the sharp edge of the woodman's axe, wielded by the strong arms of his father and elder brothers.
He received a common school education at the district school. Books were scarce and difficult to obtain, hence the information gained by reading was necessarily limited, but when sixteen years of age, his father placed him under the care of the family physician in the village to pursue the study of medicine under his direction. Young Daugherty, with his limited education, found his studies too difficult to master, and decided upon a higher education before pursuing his course of studies in medicine. Being without means, and his father unable to assist him, he applied and received from the county school superintendent a certificate and engaged a district school for the winter of 1851-2 at $13 per month, out of which he saved sufficient money to attend Oberlin College during the following summer. He followed this course for four years teaching during the winter months and attending College during the summer but never resumed the study of medicine.
In December, 1854, he married Miss H.M. Cook, an estimable young lady of Spencer, and the following spring moved to Iowa, locating in Elkader, Clayton County, teaching school with the assistance of his wife, during the winters of 1855– 6. The following spring he entered the dry goods store of S. Ellsworth, as clerk, and continued his employ until the autumn of 1857, when the "wildcat" money panic swept over the Western States, demoralizing all kinds of business to an alarming extent. He, his wife and only child, returned to Ohio, his former home, to spend the winter.
In the spring of 1858, he engaged as clerk in the dry-goods department of the mercantile house of Starre, Foote & Co., of Wellington, O., where he remained about seven years.
Owing to the ill health of his wife, in January, 1864, he removed with his family back to Iowa, locating as before in the village of Elkader, where he pursued the mercantile business for a number of years.
It was not his privilege, as it would have been his pleasure, at the breaking out of the Civil War to enlist in the cause of the great national struggle for the preservation of the Union, as he felt a keen interest in the stirring events of the dark days which brooded over this country, and for the ultimate success in the perpetuity of out glorious Government.
Circumstances over which he had no control alone prevented him from enlisting and compelled him to remain at home to provide and care for an invalid wife and only child. All the energies he possessed were used in assisting and doing for those in the field in many laudable ways, and possibly did more for the cause than had he enlisted in the active service of the Government.
His wife, whom he married in 1854, died in 1866, after a lingering illness of five years, leaving him in charge of any only child, a daughter, who at that time was ten years old. She has since grown to womanhood and possesses many, if not all, the noble traits of character inherited from her sainted mother.
He continued in the mercantile business in Elkader until the fall of 1873.
During the winter of 1869 he made the acquaintance of a Miss Jennie E. Stout, daughter of H.L. Stout, of Dubuque, Iowa, and was united in marriage the following November, 1870. He has been blessed in this union by the birth of four children, three sons and one daughter, Charles, Henry, Edwin Stout, Evelyn D., George S., all of whom are living, with the exception of the youngest of the four, who died in 1885.
In the fall of 1873, having disposed of his business in Elkader, he moved to Dubuque, Iowa, and engaged with the Knapp, Stout & Co., lumber manufacturers, and continued in the employ for about seven years.
In January, 1881, he was elected secretary and treasurer of the Farley & Loetscher Manufacturing Company, manufacturers of sash, doors, blinds, etc., Dubuque, Iowa, which position he has held for eleven years. The great manufacturing establishment, under his management during this time, has increased from a comparatively small, inconsiderate work shop to one of magnificent, proportions, and its trade reaches nearly every State and territory in the Union. Its specialty in producing fine interior house finishing material in all the different kinds of hardwood commands a trade from New York City to the Pacific Coast.
On the organization of the Dubuque Board of Trade about the year 1888, Mr. Daugherty was elected first vice-president, Mr. C.H. Eighmey being elected president, which position the latter resigned soon after the organization and he, as first vice-president assuming the duties of the president until the annual election in January, 1889, at which time he was elected president, and re-elected for two successive years, holding the position at this time, November 16, 1891.
In the fall of 1881 he was nominated on the Democratic Legislative ticket and elected to represent the city and county of Dubuque in the Lower House of the Nineteenth General Assembly, the position being unsought by him he made repeated efforts to convince the Assembly upon its convening that his predecessor, Hon. W.J. Knight, could occupy the seat if he left the same vacant, but they refused to establish the precedent, and he consequently took his seat in the House and remained to the close of the session. His political influence has always been cast with the Democratic party, both state and national, though his business relations have been such as to prevent any active life in politics. However, in the spring of 1893, being urged to accept the nomination for the mayoralty of Dubuque, believing it his duty as a citizen, he accepted and was elected to that position in April of that year.
It was during his residence in Wellington, Ohio, that he first saw Masonic light; being initiated in Wellington Lodge, No. 127, F. & A.M., August 24th, passed to the degree of Fellow Craft, September 21st, and "raised" to the sublime degree of Master Mason, December 15, 1858.
He advanced to the honorary degree of M.M.M. in Marshall Chapter, No. 47, Elyria, Ohio, March 5, 1863, and on March 19th, same year, "elected and presided" in the chair and on the same evening was received and acknowledged Most Excellent Master, and on April 2nd following exalted to the august and sublime degree of a Royal Arch Mason.
Having once espoused the cause of Masonry he became devotedly attached to the order. Finding as he did at each progressive step new beauties constantly unfolding in the beautiful system of its symbolic teachings, by allegorical figures, and the impressive formula of its rituals. Having wrought diligently in the quarries and brought up many a rough Ashler fitted for the builder's use. Having traversed the mysterious labyrinths of the temple in search of hidden treasures concealed in its mystic vaults, and having found the long-lost treasure so sacredly deposited by the grand masters of ancient craft Masonry, it naturally aroused in him a still further desire to continue his search for more light and knowledge in the mystic grades, and consequently petitioned for and received the orders conferred in Honorious Commandery, No. 8, K.T., stationed at McGregor, Iowa, in the years 1867-8.
He was consecrated to the orders of high priesthood at Mt. Pleasant in 1869.
"Passed the circle" Royal and Selected Masters, conferred on him by the grand council of Iowa, at its annual session held in Dubuque in 1874.
He received the degrees conferred in El-Kahir temple, "Nobles of the Mystic Shrine," Cedar Rapids, January 15, 1887.
The consistory grades Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite Masonry, were communicated to him by T.S. Parvin, Sovereign Inspector General for Iowa, southern jurisdiction, 4th degree to 32nd inclusive, at Dubuque, Iowa, December 15, 1887, in behalf of DeMolay Consistory at Lyons, Iowa, by which he had been elected, but was unable to attend.
The official relations of Mr. Daugherty with the various Masonic bodies many be summarized as follows:
He assisted in organizing Harmony Chapter, No. 41, Elkader, Iowa and served as it High Priest for the 1868-69-70-71-73. As High Priest of Dubuque Charter, No. 3, Dubuque, Iowa for the years 1875-76-77-78-83.
He was elected Deputy Grand High Priest of the Grand Chapter of Iowa at its annual convocation in 1876, and served as Grand High Priest for the years 1878 and 1879.
At the annual convocation of the Grand Chapter in 1878 the Cryptic degrees were merged into Capitular Masonry. The Grand Council Royal and Select Masters disbanded entirely in the jurisdiction of Iowa.
The Grand Chapter in accepting the sacred trust of conferring the Cryptic grades in the subordinate Chapters increased the duties not only of the Grand High Priest, but all the officers of the subordinate Chapters. Many of the newly elected, High Priests and officers of the subordinate Chapters had never received the Council grades and to confer them necessitated a visit from the Grand High Priest, or his officers, to prepare them to discharge the task imposed.
At the annual conclave of the Grand Commandery of the Commandery of Iowa. This high honor was accorded him for long and faithful service in the Order. And the trust thus confided was held sacred in all his relations with the valiant Knights over whom he was elected to preside.
Mr. Daugherty has always considered it a pleasure to be an active Mason in all his relations with that noble and time-honored body.
Since 1874 he has been a member of Metropolitan Lodge, No. 49, F. & A.M.; Dubuque Chapter, No. 3, Royal Arch Masons, and Siloam Commandery, No. 3, K.T., all of Dubuque, Iowa, and has served each of these bodies as its presiding officer, and in many more of the subordinate stations during these years.
In all the Masonic bodies, both Grand and subordinate, he has many warm friends who honor him for his pure character.
Mr. Daugherty is a man of large experience in business and the affairs of men, of great political tact, commingling with unswerving integrity of character, genial and polished in all his associations of public and private life, a good citizen who will never fail to seize upon the main chance when any effort of his can promote the honor and glory of his city. Mr. Daugherty's record furnished a proud example of what a self-made man may do in setting the seal of success upon his own life and in honoring the city and State of his adoption as one of their truly representative men.
-source: The Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Representative Men of Chicago, Iowa and the World's Columbian Exposition. Chicago and New York: American Biographical Publishing, 1893; pgs. 352-357
-transcribed for Clayton co. IAGenWeb
by Lisa Hanson-Braun
Portrait of Abel W. Daugherty


text:
There was a lot of commotion on the field, players on both sides of the ball pointing toward their respective end zones. It wasn't until he took a break from his pre-kick routine and glanced at the Lucas Oil Stadium Jumbotron that he realized what happened — he had a chance at redemption.
More:Colts news: Rodrigo Blankenship explains his friendship with wrestling icon Ric Flair
With the score tied 31-31 after regulation, fellow rookie Julian Blackmon stripped the ball from Green Bay Packers wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling on the opening possession of overtime. Colts defensive tackle DeForest Buckner recovered the fumble deep in Packers territory and in that moment, Blankenship knew the outcome of the game could rest on the strength and accuracy of his right leg.
The normally automatic rookie clanked a 50-yard field goal — his first attempt longer than 44 yards — off the crossbar early in the second quarter leading to 14 straight points by the Packers. The miss was just his third errant field goal attempt and fifth misfire (he's missed two extra points) overall.
Three straight Johnathan Taylor runs set up the winning opportunity. After a Green Bay timeout, Blankenship approached the 30-yard line, said a quick prayer and tried to clear his mind. The snap from Luke Rhodes was perfect, holder Rigoberto Sánchez placed it and Blankenship struck the ball cleanly.
Before the ball split the upright, Sánchez threw his hands up in celebration. Blankenship let out a jubilant scream before getting mobbed by his teammates. The 39-yarder cleared the crossbar with ease, giving Indianapolis a 34-31 win. The kick was Blankership's first game-winner as a pro.
"I feel like a freshman all over again having a lot of first-time experiences," he said. "It just felt incredibly special and I'm incredibly blessed to be here. God gave me a chance at redemption and to just prove that I can be resilient and stick it out and bounce back. I'm just incredibly blessed to have had that chance."
Despite the early miss, the Colts' offense never doubted Blankenship's ability to come through in the clutch. His Colts teammates see the work he puts into his craft and they appreciate the meticulous way he approaches his job.
The rookie kicker known as "Hot Rod" with his signature Recs Specs glasses is precise with his pre-kick routine, kicking into the net along the sideline as the offense marches down the field. He pays extra attention to his form on third down, making sure his technique is consistent before he sprints onto the field for an attempt. If it feels clean going into the on the net, he believes his form will be clean on the field.
It's the same form Blankenship's worked to perfect since he was 10 years old. The same form that allowed him to go from preferred walk-on at Georgia to a full scholarship player by his sophomore year. The same form that earned him the Lou Groza Award for the top collegiate kicker in Division I as a junior.
Blankenship's confident in the physical side of his game but he's worked hard to improve the mental aspect since arriving in the NFL. The Georgia native said he tends to be tough on himself after misses, but nailing a walk-off winner should help his confidence moving forward.
"I've tried to do a little bit less thinking," he said. "I think that's something that I've battled with and struggled with in the past is kind of being a little bit too hard on myself after a miss and trying to kind of over-coach myself and my body with my mechanics.
"I'm just trying to do a better job of not beating myself up so much and I feel like that's really, provided me with a better headspace and just a better mindset."
Blackmon forces fumble to lift Colts to 34-31 OT victory Rivers delivers against Packers, Rodgers in 34-31 OT win Doyel: Colts need lots of heroes to turn bad loss into to well-earned win Rivers misses time with toe injury but returns to game Irsay: 'We had the penalties, which was ridiculous'


George Tolchard was born in the small town of Market Harborough, Leicestershire, United Kingdom.
George has a Diploma in Zoology and is a registered FGASA (Field Guides Association of South Africa) Walking Trails Guide.
He has been living and working in Tanzania now for over 10 years and speaks the language of Kiswahili fluently. He has been involved in many aspects of conservation during his time in the safari industry and he prides himself on bringing others closer to nature.
His career began in South Africa at the age of 21 where he worked extensively throughout the region in both guiding and conservation management. George is well travelled throughout the continent of Africa but Tanzania will always be his home. His intimate knowledge of both flora and fauna as well as the regions vast habitats, is cast from many years out on foot watching and listening to the wildlife he shares these incredible wilderness areas with.
Before arriving at Singita Grumeti, George had spent considerable time walking in the Selous Game Reserve, Southern Tanzania and the Okavango Delta, Botswana. His passion for walking in the bush is nothing short of infectious!
Here's a look at the interesting bird sightings that we have had this month.
Throughout the month we have had streams of wildebeest making their way back onto the concession. They are all coming in from the north-east entering through the Ikorongo area and filing west.
I am also very pleased to report that despite our most recent census conveying a slight decline in the eland populations, that we have been seeing lovely herds all over the reserve. The average herd size is anywhere from 8 to 15 members and lovely bachelor herds numbering up to 20 individuals at times. The Cokes hartebeest have been seen on occasions in small herds with large numbers of other herbivores. They are usually seen in the quieter hills and valleys of the Pimbi region.
We had a great sighting of a female roan antelope, something we thought had become locally extinct in our area, as we had not had an official sighting of one for numerous months. She was seen just north of Watershed and Rhino Rocks. They are one of our larger antelope species, only eland, bongo and male kudu's outweigh them.
This month we have had a total of 46 different elephant sightings. Towards the end of the month has really picked up with more and more breeding herds utilizing the area.
Adas and his guests had a very rare sighting of a Patas monkey near Punda Milea camp. This is the first guest sighting of a Patas monkey in several years. They tend to favour the open grass lands dotted with small acacia thickets. Great to see them making a reintroduction into our area.
Towards the beginning of the month Jimmy and his guests came across a female and her three tiny cubs, that were only about two weeks old. Again the area was zoned to allow them the best chance of making it. Then in the last week of the month we came across them again, all still looking cute and cuddly but still too young to view, but I did manage to get these shots of them.


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text:
Cypher es una película de ciencia ficción del 2002 protagonizada por Jeremy Northam y Lucy Liu. Fue escrita por Brian King y dirigida por Vincenzo Natali. Jeremy Northam ganó el premio a mejor actor en el Festival de Cine de Sitges
.

Argumento
Morgan Sullivan (Jeremy Northam) es un contable desempleado que está aburrido de su vida suburbana y cuya mujer presiona para que tome un trabajo que le ofrece el padre de esta última. Sin embargo, este decide incorporarse a una corporación de espionaje llamada Digicorp. El jefe de seguridad de esta empresa llamado Finster (Nigel Bennett) recluta a Morgan y le asigna una nueva identidad. Adaptando su nueva identidad, Jack Thursby, es enviado a una serie de convenciones para grabarlas en secreto y enviarlas al cuartel general. Pronto Sullivan se encuentra con que está teniendo una serie de pesadillas recurrentes y dolor en el cuello. Cuando en una de esas convenciones conoce a Rita Foster (Lucy Liu) que pertenece a una corporación de la competencia, la vida de Morgan comienza a complicarse.

Rita le da una serie de pastillas para el dolor en el cuello y para las pesadillas y le dice que no comunique nada de la siguiente convención. Después de la convención Digicorp confirma que ha recibido la transmisión correspondiente aunque Morgan no ha enviado tal grabación. Convencido de que algo extraño está pasando Morgan decide tomar las pastillas que Rita le ha dado y se encuentra con que funcionan. Confundido acerca de los acontecimientos e intrigado por Rita, decide tener una nueva cita con ella. Una vez que hablan Rita le cuenta acerca del engaño de Digicorp y le ofrece un antídoto —una sustancia verde en una gran jeringa—. Morgan acepta inseguro y Rita le advierte de que no debe reaccionar sea lo que sea que vea en la convención.

Morgan descubre que todos en la convención son espías como él que creen que son espías trabajando para Digicorp. Inducidos por una droga que se les pone en la bebida, se encuentran en una especie de sueño durante el que unos científicos les lavan el cerebro. A través de unos auriculares, se les fuerza a creer que son una persona diferente preparándolos para usarlos e inmediatamente deshacerse de ellos. Creyendo que Morgan ha asumido su nueva identidad una empresa llamada Sunway Systems, competidora directa de Digicorp, recluta a Morgan para así usarlo de doble agente. El jefe de seguridad Callaway (Timothy Webber) le pasa a Morgan información errónea para que llegue a Digicorp. Morgan llama a Rita quien le advierte de que en Sunways son igual de despiadados y que, de hecho, está siendo utilizado por el jefe de Rita, Sebastian Rooks. Morgan se las ingenia para robar información requerida de Sunway Systems y escapa con ayuda de Rita.

Finalmente Rita lleva a Morgan a que conozca a Rooks. Cuando la primera deja la habitación dejándolo solo, un nervioso Morgan llama a Finster y se pone aún más nervioso. Dispara a Rita accidentalmente y esta le aconseja que acuda a la habitación de al lado para encontrarse con Rooks. Cuando llega a la habitación, la encuentra llena de objetos que le son familiares incluyendo una fotografía de él y Rita juntos. Concluyendo que él mismo es Rooks se vuelve desconfiado con Rita a partir de ese momento.

Antes de que Rita pueda terminar de hablar con él, la habitación se llena de hombres armados. Rita y Morgan escapan al tejado del rascacielos a la vez que los equipos de seguridad de Digicorp y Sunway se encuentran, guiados por Finster y Callaway respectivamente. Después de unos momentos sin que nadie haga ningún movimiento, ambas partes se dan cuenta de que persiguen a la misma persona, Sebastian Rooks, y se apresuran al tejado donde encuentran a Morgan y Rita en un helicóptero. Rita no puede dirigirlo pero habiéndolo diseñado Sebastian sí, después de que Rita le presione para que recuerde su yo pasado ayudada al recordarle su amor por ella. Finalmente despega mientras ambos equipos disparan.

Levantando la vista ven el helicóptero y se dan cuenta demasiado tarde de la identidad de Morgan Sullivan. Sebastian detona una bomba causando que todo el tejado explote. En un velero en el sur del Océano pacífico, Sebastian revela el contenido del disco robado a Rita. Escrito en ellos terminate with extreme prejudice —eliminar— son las últimas copias de la identidad de Rita —después de haber destruido la última en una escena anterior—. Sebastian tira el disco al océano y añade: «ahora ya no quedan copias».

Casting
 Jeremy Northam es Morgan Sullivan (Sebastian Rooks) y Jack Thursby.
 Lucy Liu es Rita Foster.
 Nigel Bennett es Finster.
 Timothy Webber es Callaway.
 David Hewlett es Virgil Dunn.
 Kari Matchett es Diane Thursby.
 Kristina Nicoll es Amy Sullivan.
 Boyd Banks es Fred Garfield.
 Marcus Hutchings es Jamison.

Crítica
La película recibió críticas mixtas. La página Rotten Tomatoes le dio un 58%.

Variety destacó las buenas interpretaciones del reparto.

BBC destaca la atmósfera claustrofóbica y paranoica que impera en todo el film.
Algunos críticos encontraron problemas en su compleja narrativa.

Referencias

Enlaces externos

Películas de 2002
Películas de espionaje
Películas de ciencia ficción y suspenso de Estados Unidos
Películas en inglés
Películas de Miramax
Películas ciberpunk
Películas de ciencia ficción de Canadá


text:
Bitcoin is Becoming Store of Value among US Investors: Former Uber Staff
by Davit Babayan
in Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency news
Investors in the United States are beginning to see bitcoin as a store of value, says former Uber staff Dan Held.
The Interchange co-founder and director of business development credited Facebook for upping the status of cryptocurrencies. He said in an interview to BlockTV that the social media giant's foray into the cryptocurrency industry with the introduction of its payment service project Calibra brought bitcoin to further limelight, adding:
"If someone were to tell me seven years ago that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Secretary, and the President were all going to talk about bitcoin publicly within seven days I would have been extremely excited."
Powell Validated Bitcoin as Store of Value
Held stressed that investment banks and asset managers like himself were already looking into bitcoin for its potential to act as a risk-off asset in turbulent times. The freshly escalated trade tensions between the US and China upped investors' interest in the "safe-haven" cryptocurrency.
Meanwhile, Facebook's Calibra helped to take the conversation mainstream.
At last week's congressional meet, Fed chair Jerome Powell compared bitcoin to "a speculative store of value" on the sidelines of a discussion that concerned Calibra.
"This is huge," Held added. "It is a glowing endorsement from one of the most powerful people in the world that bitcoin's use as a store of value is legitimate."
"If someone were to tell me seven years ago that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Secretary and the President were all going to talk about bitcoin publicly within seven days I would have been extremely excited." – @danheld. Full segment: https://t.co/p9PSx03lXt pic.twitter.com/9LlB1Od0L6
— BLOCKTV (@BLOCKTVnews) July 16, 2019
The comments closely followed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's press address at the White House on Monday. The former investment banker branded cryptocurrencies as a "national security issue" for being instrumental in the running of billions of dollars worth of criminal rackets.
Bitcoin is Bullish Long-Term
The White House's open dislike towards bitcoin sent the market down by more than 16.70 percent to $9,230 as of 0200 UTC today. Nevertheless, many analysts saw a silver lining in the long-term.
Bitcoin Drops by Up to 16.71 Percent Following Mnuchin's Comments | Image Credits: TradingView.com
Tom Robinson, the chief scientist at blockchain forensics company Elliptic, believes Mnuchin's statements are bullish for bitcoin. He explained that the US already has a clear anti-money laundering law around cryptocurrencies. The latest comments from the White House office would merely reduce the risk of misuse of bitcoin, and as well as Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency.
"Firstly, like bitcoin or ethereum, Libra is based on a transparent transaction ledger," Robinson told Forbes. "Secondly, Libra transactions will be processed by 'validators', which are businesses such as Mastercard and Uber. Libra transactions will only be processed if a majority of the validators agree to do so."
Noted economist Nouriel Roubini, who is also a staunch bitcoin critic, meanwhile suggested that the cryptocurrency's wild price swings prove it is a joke in long-term.
"They are not a unit of account, they are not a means of payments (5tps) and no stable store of value (-14% in a day)," he tweeted on Wednesday.
Tags: bitcoinBitcoin News
Davit Babayan
Davit Babayan is an Armenia-based expat balancing the academic life of a software design engineer with the experiences of a financial technology journalist. He aspires to be a full-time columnist and wants to write a book that would be called, "A Homeless Who Found Bitcoin."
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