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Practical Christian Theology for Women
- Wendy Horger Alsup Author
- 2008 23 Aug
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is an excerpt from Practical Theology for Women by Wendy Horger Alsup (Crossway).
Chapter Three: Faith Works!
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. - Hebrews 12:2
Who in your life do you consider to be a man or woman of faith? Who in Scripture stands out as an example of faith to you? Think about it for a moment. What is it about them that demonstrates authentic faith to you? Is it what they said? Is it what they did? What have you noticed about how they responded to trials and struggles in their lives?
Unfaithfulness in the Old Testament
Let's start our survey of faith with Old Testament passages dealing with actions that give evidence of a lack of faith. The Hebrew word ma'al is the root behind the Old Testament words unfaithful, unfaithfully, and unfaithfulness. It is also translated "falsehood," "treachery," "trespass," and "broke faith."1
Ma'al is used several times in Leviticus and Numbers to give a warning for the consequences of unfaithfulness. In Leviticus and Numbers, the act of unfaithfulness is closely associated with sin:
If a person acts unfaithfully and sins … (Leviticus 5:15)
When a person sins and acts unfaithfully against the Lord … (Leviticus 6:2 ....)
When a man or woman commits any of the sins of mankind, acting unfaithfully against the Lord … (Numbers 5:6)
Later in the Old Testament, ma'al is used to describe acts of unfaithfulness.
This includes Moses' disobedience at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, where he struck the rock instead of speaking to it in direct violation of God's instructions (see Deuteronomy 32:51). In Joshua 7, ma'al describes Achan's unfaithful act of disobedience, plundering the forbidden spoils of war, which leads to his severe punishment, death by stoning. I find both these discussions of unfaithfulness especially interesting (and a bit disconcerting) because both passages are more focused on describing the act of unfaithfulness and God's response than they are on initially setting up the situation.
In the instance of Moses' disobedience, which had very serious consequences, my initial reaction was "what's so bad about hitting the rock?" As I think through that situation, it occurs to me that I have hit rocks a number of times in my life. I can say boldly that
I do not have any conviction against hitting rocks and have never heard any pastor preach against hitting rocks. But for Moses, there was something about hitting this particular rock that caused God to accuse him of breaking faith with him and not treating him as holy in front of the children of Israel.
This reminds me that God asked very different acts of faith from different Bible characters. For Abraham, acting faithfully with God involved a willingness to sacrifice his son. For Moses, such an act would have been murder. For Daniel, faithfulness meant refusing the king's meat and drink, but there is no evidence that the same was required for Joseph, another captive of a foreign government. Many people have hit rocks—a good number of those have hit rocks out of anger. However, there was a specific understanding about this particular rock between Moses and God that caused God to rebuke Moses for the unfaithfulness inherent in the action of hitting it.
Even if I had been standing by Moses that day in Meribah-kadesh, I probably wouldn't have understood why hitting that rock caused him to lose the opportunity to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. But I guarantee that Moses understood. Moses was at a crossroads, and in that moment, he chose to turn his back on what he knew about God—an act of treachery that God strongly rebuked.
I think this marks the first key in unlocking our personal problems with faith. Acts of faith, the practical steps that result from confidence in God's working in our lives, stem from a relationship with God that is real and personal. I have talked with many women who, deep down in that private inner place that only they and God know about, are afraid of the kind of personal relationship with God that might result in him requiring something special from them. They would rather not know God that well. Are you there? Do you psychologically hide from God, singing the alphabet song with your fingers in your ears in an effort to avoid hearing that still, small voice that may call you to take a step of—gasp—faith? If so, would you acknowledge with me that this is a serious problem?
Do you find it disturbing to read about the link between a lack of faith and sin? Would you rather think of your lack of faith as a weakness? Personally, it's easier for me to think that it is just a natural reaction to doubt God when circumstances look bleak; but to call it sin? That seems awfully harsh. And yet, that's exactly what God calls it; he even calls it treachery—sin with an accompanying stab in the back.
Unfaithfulness in the New Testament
Christ uses the phrase "you of little faith" repeatedly in the New Testament. In our quest to understand faith, it would be wise for us to consider each of the situations where Christ described someone as having "little faith." The word Christ uses is oligopistos,2 meaning "of little faith" or "trusting too little." It comes from oligos, meaning simply "little," "small," or "few," and pistos, whose meaning deserves consideration. Between the King James Version and the New American Standard Version, pistos is translated "assurance,"
"belief," "faith," "faithfulness," "fidelity," "pledge," and "proof." It implies conviction of the truth of anything. It also implies faithfulness or character that can be relied upon. By combining oligos and pistos we get the idea of having little conviction of the truth of something or someone.
Jesus first uses oligopistos in Matthew 6:30-31 during his discussion about anxiety in the Sermon on the Mount:
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, "What shall we eat?" or "What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?"
In this instance, Christ does not seem to be addressing a particular person's actions. Instead, his words are part of along discussion on worry and anxiety. Did you notice how he links the state of having little faith with the action of worry? This is key to understanding faith and overcoming worry. Faith is the theological concept. Worry and anxiety are the practical issues of life. Here is clear evidence that the practical issue of worry in our lives is intensely affected by our theology. We cannot separate the two.
In Matthew 8, Christ uses oligopistos again. Jesus is asleep on a boat in the middle of a raging storm. His disciples cry frantically to him, "Save us, Lord; we are perishing." Jesus responds, "Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?" (Matthew 8:25-26). $is rebuke comes not because they ran to him with their problem, but because they greatly feared the outcome. $eir fear was the practical effect of their lack of faith.
The disciples' response here is particularly interesting because they have just witnessed Christ heal a leper, a centurion's servant, Peter's mother-in-law, and several others from an unnamed group. By now they should have a little more confidence in him than they are demonstrating. For an even clearer example of this cycle of Christ's provision and his disciples' forgetfulness, consider Matthew 16. In the chapter just before, Jesus feeds over four thousand people with seven loaves of bread and a few small fish. The disciples not only witness this, but they also give the food to the people and gather the remaining baskets of food. On top of that, this is the second time Christ has performed such a miracle in front of them. Yet they forget the miracle so fast that it would make me laugh if it weren't so pathetic. When the disciples begin discussing, in Matthew 16,that they have no bread, they are once again rebuked by Christ with oligopistos, "You of little faith"(v.18).
If you read Christ's rebuke in context, it's hard to put your finger on exactly what aspect of their response marked a lack of faith, but it's clear that they had forgotten something very important that they should have remembered from the previous provisions of food. We see this problem of provision and forgetfulness over and over throughout the Old and New Testaments—and over and over in our own lives. God does something big, and we simply forget. We forget that he provided for us last time. We forget that he worked things together so well for us to get our last job, buy our last house, have our last child. We worry and fret over new problems when we really should know better. The problem is not that we have never seen God provide for us before. The problem is not that he's asking us to respond in a way that is radically different from previous situations; the problem is that we forget the ways he's proven himself in the past and fret over how we are going to provide for ourselves in the new situation. Exhibiting little conviction in the truth of God's promises is especially troublesome when he's proven himself faithful so many times before.
Sometimes the issues are big. Sometimes the issues are small. But, in my case, no matter how many times God has proven himself faithful, it seems my initial reaction to any new problem is fear and anxiety. I have to fight each time to bring my responses back into line with what I know about him. Recently I had a misunderstanding with a dear friend, which caused me a lot of distress. After a few hours I began seeking God on how to respond in a way that would reflect the gospel and what I know to be true about God's character. When my friend and I next talked, God allowed us to resolve my concern without conflict.
But then, two days later, a similar conflict arose. Instead of thinking immediately of all God had shown me about himself earlier in the week, my first response was anger and bitterness that such a conflict was happening again. After a few hours of forgetting God, I began to remember what I know of him and how a few days before he had shown his ability to reconcile conflict. Once again, after taking my thoughts captive and making them submit to what I knew to be true about God, God resolved this conflict in a way that actually strengthened our friendship.
But so often, just like the Israelites in the Old Testament and the disciples in the New Testament, I completely forget all the ways God has shown himself faithful to me and others throughout time. Due to such forgetfulness, God instructed the Israelites to put up markers at places where God had done something mighty for them. Similarly, in light of my forgetfulness, I find journaling to be a helpful tool for remembering God's work in my life.
Faithfulness in the Scriptures
In contrast to the previous section, let's consider examples of faithfulness from Scripture. Consider Christ's words in Matthew 8 describing the centurion who came to him. Jesus says, "I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith"(Matthew8:10).Once again, the word used for "faith" here is pistis, meaning "conviction of the truth" and "belief resulting in trust." The centurion came to Jesus, asking him to heal his servant. When Jesus moved to go to the man's house, the centurion said, "Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed" (v. 8). In effect, he was saying, "Lord, I don't need to see it. You can just say it right here, and I'll trust you and walk home by myself confident all the way that you healed my servant—even though I haven't seen the results." This man believed Christ, and it showed in how he responded.
I am blessed by this man's example. He didn't verbally announce his belief in Christ. Instead he Jlived his belief in Jesus Christ. He walked up to Christ, not with confidence in himself but with an absolute, unshakeable confidence in Jesus Christ. I love the fact that Jesus was "astonished" by his response (v.10). Jesus was repeatedly gracious with those whose faith wavered, and I am so thankful that he continues to be gracious with his children today. Oh, but how sweet it would be to please the Lord with our responses of faith as this centurion did.
Matthew 9 gives us another example of faith: "Some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, 'Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven'" (Matthew 9:2). As Jesus was speaking to a crowded room of people, friends of a paralyzed man lowered him from the roof into Jesus' presence. $at simple act was the marker of their faith.
Like the centurion, these men did not proclaim their faith in Christ through words; they proclaimed it through action. Matthew 9 also includes the story of the woman with a discharge of blood who touched the fringe of Jesus' robe to make her well. Once again, it was her movement toward Jesus and not any verbal proclamation that revealed the authenticity of her faith in him. This is the example we see repeatedly throughout both the Old and New Testaments. Men and women proclaim their faith, or lack thereof, by their actions. But somehow, over time, our Christian culture has changed the focus of faith from what we do to what we say. Many in the church think we demonstrate faith when we say we believe that Jesus is the only way to God or when we verbally claim to trust him for salvation. We may forcefully tell others that God is sovereign, and we believe him to be in control over our lives. We may stand on our soapbox and proclaim Jesus to be the way, the truth, and the life. But how do we respond to trouble? How do we deal with hardships in life? What good is it if you can verbally defend Christ with the best of believers if your life contradicts your words through anxiety, fear, and worry?
Remember Abraham's example in Genesis 22 when God commanded him to offer Isaac on the altar? As with the centurion in Matthew 8, the friends of the paralytic in Matthew 9, and the woman who touched Jesus' robe, Abraham's faith in God was evidenced by his physical response. He didn't earn God's favor through his works, but he demonstrated his authentic belief by how he responded. James 2:14, 20-22 emphasize this point:
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? … Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works …
When the rubber meets the road, it's not what you say that demonstrates faith in your life. It is what you do and how you respond in the moment of crisis.
Copyright © 2008 by Wendy Horger Alsup
Published by Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers
1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.


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New tools take time
June 2011
I'm feeling better. It may just be that many of us are tired of negativity. We are so fatigued from it that we are getting things back on a positive track. Our undergraduates have left town and the reduced traffic in West Lafayette calms the soul and our labs buzz with fresh new ideas. Life science venture funding is up a little bit. The federal budget has been kinder to science than it might have been. On both ends of the political spectrum, we agree that spending must come down and tax revenues (I didn't say rates) must go up.
Happy days are here again. If not, it's up to us to make it so. I list here a few topics that I find interesting, where progress has been quite good against early negative thinking.
Adaptive clinical trials: This one has been under consideration for some time, but seems to be accelerating with better computational tools and the pressure to conserve time and money. Earlier, one wouldn't peek at the results from a classical double blind trial until it was over, or something went drastically wrong along the way. This is satisfying only in its simplicity. Suppose the wrong dose was chosen? Suppose the inclusion criteria for patients were too broad where some would benefit, some not respond and others would suffer? We'd like to know sooner. While this is a subject for experts, I'm encouraged to see this methodology being refined and gaining in popularity.
ClinTrials.gov provides transparency with clinical trials intentions and results. It's helpful to know what has not worked. Sharing the disappointing data is a very good thing. While this got started only recently (September 2007), progress has been very good. It's easy to search on your favorite disease and see those studies that have been completed and others in process. You can learn about the endpoints, inclusion/exclusion criteria and much more. Take a look.
Molecular imaging of cells, organs, and mammals, based on a wide variety of principles, is making a dramatic difference in discovery, preclinical and clinical development. This has moved from the esoteric to the routine. It's a validated approach. There are some amazing new variations, such as cell imaging on the fly with flow cytometry and imaging of biopsied tissue with mass spectrometry. It's going to get a lot better and more economical. While we all looked at pond water creatures swimming about on a microscope slide in high school biology, for most of my scientific life, when cells were to be seen, they were also to be dead, fixed, stained and everything but stuffed. Now they can be seen very much alive with specific components labeled. The definition of a microscope has broadened to an amazing array of high-performance devices. FRET and FRAP may sound like cartoon characters of old, but they are making biology history today.
Personalized medicine (at least patient segmentation into more narrowly defined classes) is gaining ground with diagnostics that are prognostic of both pharmacology and toxicology. While approved companion diagnostics remain few, markers during clinical research phases support the mechanism of action, while demonstrating efficacy and safety. Early success presages further change. Five years ago, there was much skepticism, but that is slowly abating. Related terms such as "targeted" or "tailored" therapeutics are frequent additions to the lexicon and likewise are real. Genomic characterization of cancer biopsies is now an available tool for personalized medicine. Given the long-understood phrase that children are not small adults, pediatrics remains a personalized medicine challenge that is getting attention, but continues to suffer from both financial and ethical realities. Being aware of a problem is the first step to solving it.
Dried blood/plasma spots on cellulose have been featured in a number of recent bioanalytical publications, taking the idea from its origins for qualitatively detecting inborn errors of metabolism to a new tactic for sample collection and transport for quantitative pharmacokinetics. This is made possible primarily by advances in mass spectrometry. It's too early to say for sure what the acceptance of the technology will be, but no doubt some great minds are in the lab sorting out the several challenges. Here we have another example of precompetitive technology where sharing among pharma and CROs is advancing the art. I am confident that this will not replace liquid samples to the extent the early proponents have predicted.
Malaria, HIV and TB: Altruism is making progress here with open innovation among pharma, academic institutes and not-for-profit firms. For example, new approaches to an infectious disease are being explored after a nearly 50-year hiatus in the case of tuberculosis. It is very gratifying to see the altruism of pharma sharing libraries for this effort. More rapid diagnostics for TB are also becoming available, potentially saving many weeks of time. The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development now includes the Global Health R&D Center of China. Imagine trying that in 1970.
Rare diseases: Some 6,000 to 8,000 diseases have been too rare to attract investment in pharmacology. Thus, another consortium is assembling this year with the unsurprising name of International Rare Disease Research Consortium. A number of national health organizations are signing on to participate, among them the European Commission and the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). The challenges are daunting when it comes to return on R&D investment and achieving statistical power in clinical trials when the entire disease cohort can be in hundreds, not millions. It therefore makes sense to plan to use global resources wisely and to share thoughts and data for the common good. I suspect that the biology of these unusual cases may well help sharpen solutions for more common diseases as well. Diseases thought to be common (such as cancer and influenza) are becoming much more rare as subclassifications are revealed. Along the same lines, the NIH Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) has created a database of approved and currently investigational drugs. This approaches 3,000 drugs approved in several countries. It promises to stimulate the repurposing of approved drugs for rare diseases, by providing sample compounds for screening.
Every biopharma, big and small, must balance the cost of too many projects versus the risk of too few. There is no way to get this right except by luck. Planning cannot work! This is the problem with science! If we knew what was going to happen, it would not be science, but rather engineering! Sharing risk and best practices sure beats the "not invented here" closed environment of the 1980s. All the examples noted above are enhanced by sharing data and open debate. It's been a rough first half in 2011, but beneath the noise, much progress is being made, and the last five years have been a lot more productive than we take time to realize. The glass is not empty.
Peter Kissinger is chairman emeritus of BASi, CEO of Prosolia in Indianapolis and a professor of chemistry at Purdue University.
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Portland Institute for Contemporary Art acknowledges and advances new developments in contemporary art while fostering the creative explorations of artists and audiences.
PICA's programming supports the experiments of the most vital and provocative artists of our time. Our vision is international, intergenerational, interdisciplinary, and decidedly forward thinking (even when those explorations look back in history). PICA is unique among institutions for working right alongside artists at the increasingly blurry boundaries between forms and at the edge of new ideas. Throughout the year, audiences have myriad opportunities to interact with artists, curators, critics, and cultural visionaries in a direct, in-depth way. From performances to exhibitions to lectures to the annual Time-Based Art Festival, our programs catalyze conversations about contemporary culture.
Kristy Edmunds, a respected young artist and curator, founded PICA in 1995 in response to a widening gap in Portland between the established traditional institutions and emerging alternative spaces. She saw a need for contemporary art programs that would cross disciplines and engage a national group of artists with the existing local artistic dialogue. Without a dedicated exhibition or performance facility, Edmunds began an itinerant program in vacant warehouses and makeshift venues throughout the city. These early years established the adaptable and artist-centric DNA that continues to inform PICA's practice to this day.
Looking for new ways to connect artists and audiences, PICA launched the Time-Based Art (TBA) Festival in 2003, inspired in-part by various civic-embedded festivals in Europe and Australia. In the Festival, PICA built a new forum for global artistic practice, while forging new paths for audiences to engage with contemporary forms work, from workshops to galleries to performance to panels to informal, late-night beer garden conversations. The beauty of TBA stems from the unexpected juxtapositions that emerge from placing so many diverse disciplines and projects in such close proximity. Over the years of the Festival, audiences have increased from 7,500 in 2003 to over 26,000 today.
In 2006, Edmunds departed Portland for the Melbourne International Arts Festival, and PICA began inviting renowned curators from across the country to program the TBA Festival for three-year appointments. From 2006–2008, Mark Russell—Artistic Director of the Under the Radar Festival and formerly of PS122 in New York—oversaw direction of the Festival, and from 2009–2011, TBA was curated by Cathy Edwards—Director of Programming for the Festival of Art and Ideas in New Haven, Connecticut, and previously the Artistic Director at Dance Theater Workshop, New York.
After many years concentrating our attention on TBA, PICA embarked on a strategic plan in 2011, launching a search for on-the-ground artistic leadership and a year-round space. Through this process, we hired Angela Mattox, from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, as PICA's resident Artistic Director. Concurrently, we constructed a new downtown home for our offices and Resource Room library, flexible enough to host performances, dinners, exhibitions, workshops, and a breadth of other activity throughout the year.
In 2017, PICA underwent a significant organizational transition with regard to its operating space and artistic leadership. After 22 years as an itinerant organization, mounting performances, exhibitions, and public programs in traditional venues and underutilized properties throughout the city, PICA is entering an exciting new era, with a 20-year, no-rent lease on a 18,000 sq. ft. warehouse in Portland's NE Eliot neighborhood.
Our artistic leadership structure now has shifted from a single Artistic Director model to collaborative approach that is led by three Artistic Directors: Curator of Visual Art, Kristan Kennedy, Curator of Performance, Erin Boberg Doughton, and Curator of Public Engagement, Roya Amirsoleymani.
PICA doesn't view these recent milestones as the apex of our history, but rather as the latest phase of our continual evolution. As we look ahead at our trajectory, we will follow the future-forecasting of the artists, responding to their ideas and inviting audiences along in our explorations. PICA is a work-in-progress.
For information about PICA's past programs, please explore our event calendar.
Cover image courtesy Portland Institute for Contemporary Art.


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Newtown victim Josephine Gay had just celebrated 7th birthday on Tuesday
Josephine Gay celebrated her seventh birthday Tuesday, just three days before her life was tragically cut short in a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday. Hundreds took to social media to express their condolences and grief about her death.
"Rest in peace, Angel," reads a message on a Facebook page dedicated to Josephine Gay.
See photos and view an interactive database profiling the victims of the shooting.
She was nicknamed "Boo" because she looked like the character in the animated children's movie Monster's Inc., according to a Facebook post by Carole Laude Pechi. Her beaming smile, fronted by a set of big, white teeth, paired with her short brown hair to complete the resemblance.
Sinde Candella, who used to live in the neighborhood, said on Facebook she watched news reports hoping she wouldn't see any names she recognized. Candella said Josephine's parents, Bob and Michelle, are loving and "very into doing things with their girls."
"May God be with you and may he hold Josephine in his arms in Heaven," she posted.
"This just isn't fair," wrote Ashley Victoria Kendrick. "She's so beautiful and happy. She will be a lovely part of heaven."
"You can see in your daughter's face that she was a joy and pure perfection," Rachel Taylor posted Sunday morning. "Your daughter will not be forgotten."
Josephine liked to ride her bike in the street and set up lemonade stands in the summer, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal. She loved the color purple.
A neighbor told the Wall Street Journal that the family is "very kind" and that the Gay girls were very welcoming when she first moved to the area.


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Revolving around a wife who cares for her husband in a comatose state in a war-ravished town in the Middle East, one is led to believe the director is pointing to his home country of Afghanistan for inspiration.
Golshifteh Farahani's performance is one of the strongest I have seen by an actress, however, I think the director Atiq Rahimi ultimately asks too much from the actress and the audience as she is exposed to a life of brutality in a place where women are constantly oppressed.
There is no subtleness in the film. It is relentlessness in the depiction of women and in the worst possible conditions with no room for hope.
There is a total breakdown of a society as the story takes place in the middle of a war zone that drives extreme behavior. The town depicted in the film is in a nowhere land and ruled by men who freely wield automatic weapons.
The woman's confessions are extraordinary and without restraint as she opens up about sex and love, her anger against a man who never understood her and mistreated her and those whom never showed her any respect or kindness. The story is known through the Muslim world.
Both the writer/director and the actress, who plays his central character, have lived and worked in a manner that defies the stricture of their respective cultures' religious prohibitions.
Since leaving Afghanistan at the age of 20, in the mid-1990s to become a novelist, filmmaker, winning the Prix Goncourt in 2008, Rahimi has achieved both admiration and infamy in his homeland and in the Muslim world.
Aside from the great acting, the violence in his film makes it hard to watch. More than once, I thought of leaving the theater.


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- 1 cup 1-inch pieces fresh chives
- 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 1
- 6 tablespoons crumbled soft fresh goat cheese
- 2 tablespoons minced shallot
- 20 3/4-inch-thick diagonal slices French-bread baguette
- 1
- 6 ounces thinly sliced smoked salmon
- Additional chopped fresh chives
Recipe Preparation
Puree 1 cup chives and oil in blender 2 minutes. Pour into fine sieve set over medium bowl. Let drain 1 hour (do not press on solids). Discard solids.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Mix goat cheese and shallot in small bowl; season to taste with pepper. Place bread slices on large baking sheet. Brush both sides of bread lightly with chive oil. Spread each slice with 1 1/2 teaspoons cheese mixture.
Bake bread until light golden, about 5 minutes. Transfer to platter. Drape 1 salmon slice over each. Sprinkle with additional chopped chives.


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April 21, 2010by Darren FluscheYesterday, the Michigan House voted 74-33 to ban texting while driving as a primary offence, meaning that police can ticket for driving while texting without seeing another violation. This is a pleasant surprise and a victory for the elected officials and bicycling advocates who had been pushing for a strong law for months.
April 21, 2010by Darren FluscheLeague President Andy Clarke and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood teamed up for an all-star appearance on BicycleRadio tonight to discuss the state of national and local bike policy.
April 20, 2010by Darren FluscheLeague President Andy Clarke will join Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood on BicycleRadio at 10:00 pm EST (7:00pm PST) tonight.
April 20, 2010by Darren FluscheJust in case you didn't believe us that League President Andy Clarke visited Long BEach, CA, last week, LA Streetsblog has provided photographic evidence (and a nice write-up
April 20, 2010by Darren Flusche... but also wonders how replicable a model it is. Here's the article.
April 20, 2010by Darren FluscheLast week we told you about the Mayor of Tupelo, MS signing a proclamation of support for the USDOT stateme
April 19, 2010by Darren FluscheLeague President Andy Clarke was just out in Bronze Bicycle Friendly Community Long Beach, CA. getting a tour of the local bike facilities from mobility coordinator Charlie Gandy. But you don't have to go out to sunny SoCal to take a look at what they're doing for bicyclists.
April 16, 2010by Darren FluscheBike club leaders met in Milwaukee, Wis. this past weekend to share best practices during the League's Club Leadership Training. The Training proved to be an opportunity for new and veteran leaders to discuss what works best in their club, where they need to improve, and the things that can be done to grow.
April 15, 2010by Darren FluscheIn a new message on his website, Congressman LaTourette (R-OH) expressed regret at the uproar caused by his questions to the Undersecretary of Tranportation about the USDOT
April 15, 2010by supportDATE: May 19, 2010 TIME: 7:00 pm WHERE: Hundreds of locations world wide Join cyclists worldwide in a silent slow-paced ride (max. 12 mph/20 kph) in honor of those who have been injured or killed while cycling on public roadways.


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Yesterday, the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA) announced that effective Jan. 1, 2013, it will only accept CFPs for full membership in the fee-only organization. Those full members are known as NAPFA-Registered Financial Advisors; other levels of membership include provisional member and sustaining/retired member.
Here's how the NAPFA press release explained the group's move: "The NAPFA National Board recognized the need to support the emerging profession of financial planning by rallying around a singular professional designation in the same way the public trusts that those holding a CPA, MD, or JD are meeting education, training, and ethics requirements. NAPFA's decision can be viewed as an important consumer issue in an environment where the public is bombarded by an alphabet soup of designations that only professionals can be expected to understand."
Pardon me for scratching my head. Not normally at a loss for words, the only comment I can come up with is that it's a curious move, at a curious time, for purportedly, a curious reason.
Let's start with that curious reason. Alphabet soup? Really? Yes, I get that there are a lot of "advisor" designations out there—too many in virtually everyone's view. My confusion, however, stems from the fact that at least since 2010, NAPFA only accepted planners with one of two designations as registered members: the CFP, and the AICPA's Personal Financial Specialist (PFS). So it's not like this latest pronouncement is any great leap forward in the quest for fewer financial designations.
Even more puzzling, it's a big slap in the face of the only other (than NAPFA) organization in comprehensive financial advice with arguably higher standards than the CFP Board. Accountants not only have more stringent educational requirements, but more rigorous testing, and more importantly, higher ethical standards. For instance, the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct requires all CPAs including PFS designees to not only "put their clients' and the public's interests first," but to have integrity (defined as "doing what is just and right"), objectivity ("the obligation to be impartial, intellectually honest, and free of conflicts of interest"), and independence (which precludes "relationships that may appear to impair a member's objectivity…").
The AICPA Code puts it this way: "Integrity requires that service and the public trust not be subordinated to personal gain and advantage. Objectivity and independence require that members be free from conflicts of interest in discharging professional responsibilities. Due care requires that services be provided with competence and diligence."
Yes, I'm aware that despite these high standards, some 20 years ago the AICPA was persuaded by Herb Vest and then others to allow CPAs to become FINRA-licensed brokers, despite the conflict of interest that created between their clients and the BDs they were registered to represent. Unfortunately, as we're all aware, the CFP Board is no better on that front, and is, if anything, even more conflicted: the majority of CFPs also hold securities licenses.
More to the point, the CFP Board—and consequently, many CFPs—is also more in conflict with NAPFA's own code of ethics. Unlike NAPFA-registered advisors, CFPs aren't required to be compensated directly and solely by their clients (through fees), nor to avoid or mitigate their conflicts of interest, nor required to act as a fiduciary at all times while engaged as a comprehensive financial planner, nor from charging commissions, nor from receiving referral fees, or being affiliated with a business that engages in the sale of financial products (any one of these offenses would get you bounced from NAPFA faster than a Kardashian sister can dump a new boyfriend).
Finally, yes, I get the need for a single financial advisory profession, with a single designation (and have written about just that many times over the years). The problem is that the CFP Board seems a lot less interested in creating such a profession than NAPFA does. By limiting its membership solely to holders of the CFP designation, NAPFA appears to be focusing more on the process of financial planning than on bona fide professional standards.
One can only hope that NAPFA is planning to use its influence as a co-member of the Financial Planning Coalition to move the Board in the direction of greater professionalism.


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We've spent the last few weeks working on the release of Christopher's latest book, a cautionary sci-fi tale called The Babi Makers. The very concept of the book had my creative gears spinning, and I immediately thought of doing something that was contemporary, yet also evocative of funky old sci-fi things like Omni magazine art and paperback book covers from the '50s and '60s. I originally thought to have just a landscape in the bottom half, meant to represent the community of Nové depicted in the book. It wasn't quite working, however, and that's when Christopher thought up the idea of including figures looking over a cliff. That's where it finally clicked.
The Babi Makers is available as a Kindle download, or as a paperback. Below, some imagery that guided me along in the design process.


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Fachbereich Mathematik
Document Type
- Preprint (3) (remove)
- Earth's disturbing potential (1)
- Molodensky Problem (1)
- Molodensky problem (1)
- Wavelet Analysis auf regulären Flächen (1)
- deflections of the vertical (1)
- harmonic scaling functions and wavelets (1)
- local multiscale (1)
- locally supported (Green's) vector wavelets (1)
- multiscale approximation on regular telluroidal surfaces (1)
On the Local Multiscale Determination of the Earth`s Disturbing Potential From Discrete Deflections of the Vertical (2007)
As a first approximation the Earth is a sphere; as a second approximation it may be considered an ellipsoid of revolution. The deviations of the actual Earth's gravity field from the ellipsoidal 'normal' field are so small that they can be understood to be linear. The splitting of the Earth's gravity field into a 'normal' and a remaining small 'disturbing' field considerably simplifies the problem of its determination. Under the assumption of an ellipsoidal Earth model high observational accuracy is achievable only if the deviation (deflection of the vertical) of the physical plumb line, to which measurements refer, from the ellipsoidal normal is not ignored. Hence, the determination of the disturbing potential from known deflections of the vertical is a central problem of physical geodesy. In this paper we propose a new, well-promising method for modelling the disturbing potential locally from the deflections of the vertical. Essential tools are integral formulae on the sphere based on Green's function of the Beltrami operator. The determination of the disturbing potential from deflections of the vertical is formulated as a multiscale procedure involving scale-dependent regularized versions of the surface gradient of the Green function. The modelling process is based on a multiscale framework by use of locally supported surface curl-free vector wavelets.
By means of the limit and jump relations of classical potential theory with respect to the vectorial Helmholtz equation a wavelet approach is established on a regular surface. The multiscale procedure is constructed in such a way that the emerging scalar, vectorial and tensorial potential kernels act as scaling functions. Corresponding wavelets are defined via a canonical refinement equation. A tree algorithm for fast decomposition of a complex-valued vector field given on a regular surface is developed based on numerical integration rules. By virtue of this tree algorithm, an effcient numerical method for the solution of vectorial Fredholm integral equations on regular surfaces is discussed in more detail. The resulting multiscale formulation is used to solve boundary-value problems for the time harmonic Maxwell's equations corresponding to regular surfaces.
Based on the well-known results of classical potential theory, viz. the limit and jump relations for layer integrals, a numerically viable and e±cient multiscale method of approximating the disturbing potential from gravity anomalies is established on regular surfaces, i.e., on telluroids of ellipsoidal or even more structured geometric shape. The essential idea is to use scale dependent regularizations of the layer potentials occurring in the integral formulation of the linearized Molodensky problem to introduce scaling functions and wavelets on the telluroid. As an application of our multiscale approach some numerical examples are presented on an ellipsoidal telluroid.


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Visit Us in Chatsworth
Close to California State University - Northridge and Metrolink light rail
Soak up the southern California sun at our Travelodge Chatsworth hotel, near California State University, Northridge. Conveniently located off State Route 118 in Chatsworth, our hotel puts you within easy reach of attractions, shopping and dining. The Metrolink light rail service is just one block away.


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Extended Drydown in Corn
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Using Soil Tests Phosphorus Results to Identify Agronomic and Conservation Needs
an essential tool for sound agronomic nutrient management decisions. That same agronomic test result ... https://go.osu.edu/fert-recs Phosphorus Nutrient Management for Yield and Reduced P Loss at Edge of Field AGF-509 ... Nutrient Management ...
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University Agriculture News. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Cover crops have been shown to improve water and soil ... quality, reduce erosion and capture nutrients. Choosing the right cover crop, however, can be difficult. ... manager for the MCCC and a staff member in Purdue's Department of Agronomy. "We've been able to give users ...
Are those Mosquitoes on Steroids…No, They are just Crane Flies.
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Surface Application of Manure to Newly Planted Wheat Fields
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For years, says Don Self, "My father and I just grew cotton and soybeans, with a little corn occasionally. But when we started growing peanuts, rotation became a necessity in order to limit diseases, and we dropped soybeans.
"Even though soybean prices have been attractive in recent years, we don't want them in rotation with peanuts, because they have some of the same diseases," says Self, who now farms with his father Dennis, son Nathan, and son-in-law Hank Harrington at Hamilton, Miss., and is Mississippi's representative on the 11-member National Peanut Board. "We adopted a one-third cotton/corn/peanut rotation that we stick to religiously."
Except for this year.
"We're all peanuts," he says. "The $750 per ton contract price at the start of the season was just too good not to take advantage of.
"With the big price runup to $1,000 in 2011 due to the crop shortage nationwide, a lot of people were holding out this year for $900 or even $1,000 — kinda like holding out for $1.50 cotton a couple of years ago. But I told the Birdsong Peanuts people, 'We'll take all we can get at $750; in fact [he laughs], I'll contract years ahead for $750.'
"Trying to get the top price for any crop is just a shot in the dark; nowadays, a farmer has to maximize every dollar. If I can see a good profit, I'll take the sure thing any day over trying to hold out for an extra dollar that may never materialize."
Next year, he says, "We'll go back to our rotation program.
Blog: When down becomes up: How 379 acres of peanuts got confused
"When I'm talking with new growers, I tell them I can't emphasize enough the importance of rotation — not just for disease/weed control, but for the benefits that each crop provides for the others."
Although the Selfs have only been growing peanuts since 2007, they're among the pioneers of the crop in northeast Mississippi.
"In 2005, Dan West, who farms here in Monroe County, was the first to grow peanuts for Golden Peanuts," Don says. "The Atkins family, William Dean, Allen, and Brian, also here in Monroe County, were second, and in 2007 we were third.
When the first peanuts went in and additional growers were being sought, Don began an intensive study of the crop. "I studied peanuts night and day, read everything I could get my hands on, talked to every grower and every specialist who would give me time,"
"A lot of what I knew from my years of growing cotton, soybeans, and corn I had to throw out the window. Planting depth, for example — I'd never before planted any crop 2½ to 3 inches deep. There was a real mental adjustment. And every year we grow the crop, I learn something new.
"After all my studying, I told Daddy, who'd grown cotton all his life, that if we could survive the learning curve for growing peanuts, I believed they could be a profitable crop."
"Ever since then when a problem would come up — particularly in 2009, when we got 35 inches of rain from Oct. 1 through Dec. 15 — Daddy would ask me, 'How long is this learning curve going to last?'
"For a lot of Mississippi farmers," Don says, "2009 is the bad year to which they'll compare all future bad years. We've never had one that bad, and I hope we never see another like it.
"We had 80 acres of quality peanuts on top of the ground and we could never get a combine in the field to harvest them. It was sickening. But the deer had a great feast all winter long — they love peanuts! — and in the spring we plowed under what was left."
In meetings where he speaks, particularly to new growers, Don likes to say, "Peanuts are a tough crop, and they can be very forgiving."
But he then adds a cautionary note: "There are a lot of things that can go wrong — and if you think you're just going to plant them, then wait to dig them and collect your money, you can be in for a rude awakening."
Irrigation becoming a necessity
To further boost production potential on their farm, particularly for corn, Don says, "Our goal is to have 75 percent of our crop land irrigated within the next five years. With our changing weather, it has become apparent that irrigation is going to be a necessity for consistent crop production, particularly with corn.
"We have two center pivots now that can water 180 acres, and we're going to build a big lake in a low-lying area to provide additional water for irrigation. We'll add more center pivots, and probably less than 20 percent of the irrigated land will be furrow."
They're also in the process of converting some of their timber acreage to cropland. "We've just cut about 120 acres of mostly hardwoods, and we're clearing some other areas that should give us another 200 or so acres. That will put us at a level that we have about as much acreage as we can handle without more labor."
Feature: On Taylor farm in Arkansas, peanuts add diversity and rotation benefits
Read: Bumper peanut crop dampens markets
They grow GA 06G peanuts, "which is a good variety," Don says. "In the past, we've grown some GA 07W, and some AT 215, a 115-120 day peanut that's good for late planting or behind wheat. GA 09B is looking promising in trials, and I'm anxious to see this year's data on it."
They started planting May 2 and finished May 27, but had to replant 379 acres due to a weather phenomenon during germination that caused the peanuts to start growing the reverse of normal (see article, "When down becomes up: How 379 acres of peanuts got confused").
At mid-July, following 3 inches of rain, Don says all the peanuts were looking good.
"The 95 to 100-plus temperatures we had in late June/early July are hard on peanuts, but the rains since then have been great. If we can just get a couple of more good rains going through the season, we should have a good crop.
"Because peanuts are relatively new in this area, as a general rule we don't have the disease pressures that they have in south Mississippi, or in the southeastern states, where they've grown peanuts for years and can make eight or more fungicide applications in a season.
"We made our first application of Provost fungicide in July. We may have to make one or two more, depending on the rains we get. We could have a touch of white mold here and there, but so far we've been able to control it.
"We've had a bit of leaf scorch from the very hot weather earlier, but the rains and more moderate temperatures seem to have taken care of that. We've had a few cutworms, but nothing that we've needed to spray — if we do, Ammo takes care of them. Three or four years ago, we had to spray for some three-cornered alfalfahoppers, and we'll have occasional armyworms, but usually not enough to warrant spraying.
"Peanuts need boron, and we apply Solubor at 3 lbs. per acre when we apply the fungicide."
This year, Don says, they deep-tilled all their land to 10-12 inches with a five-bottom switch plow. "Over the years, with cotton and soybeans, we'd moved away from deep tillage, but in our present rotation, I believe it helps with diseases and weeds by turning under old cornstalks and debris. It has also made the ground more mellow, which makes it easier for peanuts to peg into the soil.
"Our plan is to deep-till one-third of our acreage every year. We think the benefits will outweigh the fuel and other costs."
Thus far, he says, they've had no resistant weeds on their land. "We run a very tight weed control program, and we're on the lookout for any escapes; we don't leave any weeds in the field to go to seed. We also make sure that any equipment that comes on our farm has been properly sanitized; I think a lot of weed problems start from seed brought in on equipment.
Weed control program
"With our conventional tillage program, we don't do any burn down. We disk, do-all, run a hipper-roller, and plant. We apply Prowl H20 and Valor behind the planter, and in certain areas add Strongarm at the one-half rate for red root pigweed and Palmer amaranth. Later, we'll apply a Blazer, 2,4-DB, Basagran tank mix, or Cadre plus2,4-DB. We also apply 16 oz. of Volunteer, which gives us excellent grass control.
"Our consultant, Mitt Wardlaw, Southern Ag Consulting at Starkville, Miss., whose advice we trust implicitly, says if you have to have a limiting factor with peanuts, it should be something you can't control, like weather. So, we work hard to make sure none of the things we can control are limiting factors."
In a perfect world, based on this year's planting dates, "We should be able to start digging about Sept. 23, which would be the earliest ever for us," Don says. "Last year, we started digging exactly 135 days after planting, which was a first for us. If there are no weather setbacks, we can be done with harvest in 30 days — and be getting ready for deer season."
They have two 6-row combines, an Amadas self-propelled combine and a KMC pull-behind, plus two KMC 4-row diggers.
Mississippi growers have done well with peanuts, he notes; last year, the state had the nation's highest average yield. "We had the best crop ever on our farm," Don says. "We had some fields that yielded 6,000 pounds-plus, and our average across all fields was 4,664 pounds. For us, that was phenomenal."
Feature: Peanuts in Mississippi – it's not just the good prices
Don's grandfather started farming here and his father continued the tradition.
"My earliest childhood memory is of playing in a cotton wagon on Daddy's farm," he says. "He's 78now, but he's still a hands-on guy; he knows everything that goes on. He still helps with planting and harvesting, and he's really sharp at marketing cottonseed at Farmers Gin, the co-op in which we're shareholders, and he serves as board president. My mom, Mary Anna, keeps books for the gin, which ginned 40,000-plus bales last year. And my wife, Lisa, runs the seed tender and module builder, and has been a vital part of everything we've achieved over the years.
"Our son-in-law, Hank Harrington, had a good off-farm desk job, but like me, he's an outside kind of guy, and I couldn't be happier that he decided to join us on the farm. He's very talented and can do anything that needs to be done.
"Our son, Nathan, has a good off-farm position with a nearby industry, but he takes vacation time to help out here when we're in a crunch at planting and harvesting, and I'm hoping I can eventually persuade him to come back to the farm."
Don says he's grateful to "so many people who helped us when we started growing peanuts — Dan West and the Atkins family, who pioneered peanuts in this area; Dr. Marshall Lamb, research director at the USDA National Peanut Research Laboratory; Dr. John Beasley, peanut specialist at the University of Georgia; Mike Howell, Mississippi State University Extension peanut specialist; Joe Morgan, long-time grower at Hattiesburg and president of Mississippi Peanut Growers; the Birdsong Peanuts staff — everyone was so good to us, so helpful.
"Helpfulness is catching, and I made a commitment that I would do the same, that I'd help any grower I could with advice and the benefit of my experience with the crop. You can face some real hardships with peanuts, and if I can be of assistance to another grower, that's what I want to do."
Peanut Board programs
He's especially complimentary of the National Peanut Board, its members, and staff.
"It was a great honor when the Secretary of Agriculture telephoned to tell me I'd been appointed to represent Mississippi. I'm now in my fourth year on the board, and I never cease to be amazed at how effectively producer contributions, ranging from $6 million to $8 million per year, are being used.
"The NPB board members are some of the most knowledgeable, most astute people about peanuts and agriculture in general that I've ever known. Board President Marie Fenn, in the Atlanta headquarters, does a wonderful job of running the organization and stretching a relatively small annual budget to get the maximum good for the industry through its research and promotion programs. Everyone on the board and staff takes the American peanut farmer and his financial contributions very seriously, and I'm proud to be a part of such an outstanding group."
And Don says, his board duties have provided broader opportunities to spread the message about agriculture and its contributions to the nation's food security and the environment.
"I've had the good fortune to travel a lot in my Peanut Board work. Recently, I was standing on a street corner in New York City, surrounded by people who likely never give a thought to the agriculture that sustains them. If there were to be a major interruption in the food supply chain, I thought, how long would it take for there to be anarchy among 16 million people with no access to the bounty they take for granted every day?"
"And any number of times, I've had people quiz me about the chemicals we use and lecture me about the harm farmers are doing to the land and water. I tell them, 'I live on the land that I farm, my family and my parents and my grandchildren live there, too. We eat vegetables from the garden, fish from the ponds, and drink water from the wells — do you think I'd be doing anything that would harm the people I love the most, or the land that goes back to my grandfather — just so I could sell you something?' The response I usually get is, 'I never thought of it that way.'"
Don says, "I'm not a farmer because I farm — I'm a farmer because that's what God made me. I was blessed to grow up on a farm, with loving parents who taught by example. Lisa and I have been blessed to raise three fine children here, and now we're blessed to have four grandchildren growing up on the farm.
"There's no better place to raise a child than on the farm. Every day they see God's handiwork firsthand, and they learn so many lessons that will be valuable to them throughout their lives. It's hard to put a price on that."


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Pop culture has gone superhero-crazy, but almost all superheroes date from the middle of the last century. Where's the new, fresh costumed adventurer who speaks to the ringtone generation? How about Hannah Montana, the Disney Channel's superstar?
Hannah Montana travels around, using her pop-star powers to save the world. Her main superpower is popularity, which is like the perfect teen girl power. Although it's mostly off-screen, you get the impression that her life as Hannah Montana consists of non-stop charity fundraising, and making people's lives better in small but huge ways. She doesn't actually fight any giant monsters that I'm aware of, but she does "punk" the Queen of England in one episode.
But more importantly Hannah Montana revolves around that most basic of superhero concepts: the secret identity. At a time when kids are growing up accustomed to having their whole identities online — including other ideas that are alternate, pseudonymous or downright fanciful, Hannah Montana is a show about a girl who has a dual identity.
I hadn't ever watched Hannah Montana until about a week ago, when there was literally nothing on except utter trash, and Hannah seemed like the most fascinating trash on offer. And indeed, it is trashy — but it's even more fascinating than I had realized.
Here's the show's setup: Miley Cyrus plays Miley Stewart, a young girl who is secretly teen pop sensation Hannah Montana. Nobody knows that Miley is Hannah Montana, except for her family and her two closest friends. As Hannah, Miley travels the world and performs for famous people as well as sell-out crowds. As Miley, she's at the bottom of her school's social pecking order, despised by the popular girls who all worship Hannah Montana. And just like Clark Kent and Superman, the means by which she transforms her identity borders on magical realism — she becomes Hannah by putting on a chintzy blonde wig and a bit of makeup, and nobody ever recognizes her as Miley. It's pretty amazing.
And Miley's real-life dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, plays her dad on the show, Robby Stewart. Unlike his real-life incarnation as a super-famous Country-Western singer, Billy Ray's character on the show appears to be unemployed, and all he does is sit around the house with his slacker son Jackson all day. Except when Miley turns into Hannah Montana, her dad serves as her manager and also frequently shows up to accompany her on the guitar. Because nobody must know that Miley is Hannah, her dad also wears a disguise — a giant porn mustache. Nobody can tell that he's the same guy with and without that giant mustachio.
And finally, when Miley's best friend from school accompanies her on her gigs as Hannah Montana, she puts on a ridiculous blue wig and becomes a totally different person. It's amazing.
So far, every episode of the show I've watched has revolved around Hannah's dual identity, and the trouble she goes to so that nobody will ever know that Miley is the famous Hannah Montana. Often, there's some annoying/vexing situation faced by Miley in her "civilian" identity, which she could solve easily as Hannah, because everything is at her fingertips when she's in her superstar mode. But she has to solve her real-life problems as Miley, rather than resorting to using her clout as Hannah, because it's important for her to live a "normal" life. Also, if she makes the mistake of showing up someplace as Hannah, then she instantly becomes the center of attention, putting her friends and family in the shade. The show's theme tune, "Best Of Both Worlds," refers to the fact that Miley/Hannah lives a double life in which she's both a regular girl and a superstar.
In the big-screen Hannah Montana movie, all of the classic features of the "secret identity" storyline are cranked up to the maximum — there's a nosy reporter who's determined to find out Hannah Montana's secret. She starts developing a romantic relationship with Travis, her childhood sweet heart — at one point, she meets him as Hannah, and encourages him to ask Miley out. (Somehow, even Travis doesn't realize they're the same girl with different hair.) But when he does ask her out, she's stuck having dinner with the mayor as Hannah, and she keeps trying to go back and forth between the mayor's dinner and her date with Travis — until she's caught out, and Travis dumps her. In the climactic scene, Hannah is on stage performing at a concert, and Travis walks in. She decides she can't live this double life any more, so she pulls her wig off and reveals to the crowd that she's really Miley. But the sold-out crowd begs her to keep being Hannah Montana, and everybody promises to keep her secret — including the reporter, who's taken a picture of Hannah "unmasked," using his cameraphone.
It's interesting to see a show that's so explicitly about secret identities, since actual superhero narratives in the past decade or so have had such a hard time with the "secret identity" concept. The Spider-Man movies made a big point of unmasking Spidey every chance they got, especially the second one. Tony Stark "comes out" as Iron Man at the end of the first movie, and the second movie is all about him being superheroic in the public eye (so that, like all celebrities, he has no privacy and no division between public and private.) In Smallville, Clark Kent's only superheroic identity is "The Blur," whose identity and nature are, well... blurry. The only major recent superhero narrative that I can think of that deals with the consequences of keeping a dual identity is The Dark Knight, in which Bruce Wayne is under pressure to reveal his true identity for almost the entire film, and the film concludes with Batman taking on a new false identity, that of wanted criminal. In comics, Spider-Man's biggest recent storyline was his public unmasking (which was, admittedly, later undone by Satan) and the DC Comics heroes all call each other "Bruce" and "Clark" and so on, even when they're out in public wearing their costumes.
Back in May, we linked to an essay which Iron Man director Jon Favreau had tweeted, calling Iron Man the first 21st century superhero, because he lives his life totally in public and is intertwined with technology. But in many ways, Hannah Montana is the real 21st century superheroic archetype — like Tony Stark, she mostly saves the world off-screen — and her popularity suggests the "secret identity" concept isn't as irrelevant as a lot of people might have thought. In fact, Hollywood may discover there's a lot more mileage (no pun intended) in the idea of superheroes having secret identities than anyone realized.
Because that's the thing — we're all used to living our lives in the Panopticon of the internet, with everything happening in public thanks to Twitter and Facebook and whatever Foursquare is calling itself this week. But we're also comfortable with the idea of having different identities in different situations, and my sense is that's more true for kids than for everyone else. The internet doesn't just lay our lives bare and expose everything we do, like some kind of gigantic cyber-strip search — it also makes it easier to create different avatars for different parts of our lives. Both literally, in the case of MMOs and virtual worlds like Second Life, and figuratively, in the sense of having different identities on message boards and social networks. What R.D. Laing wrote in The Divided Self (1964) — that we're all fragmented individuals, putting on different fronts in different contexts — is even truer in the internet era.
So Hannah Montana is actually more emblematic of the era we live in than Tony Stark, and the very flimsiness of her disguise — and the fact that everybody accepts it in spite of how flimsy it is — speak to our condition as well. Actually that word "in spite of" seems misleading — as the movie reveals by having her unmask publicly, people accept the disguise because it is so obviously fake. The cheapness and weakness of the disguise encourages everybody to collude in making it successful. Smack a wig on Miley and a Burt Reynolds 'stache on Billy Ray, and everybody will swear they're totally different people. Because if you admit that the wig and the 'stache aren't totally convincing, then you're depriving Hannah Montana of her power to save the world. And who would want to do that?


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anarcha wrote:Does it not logically follow that further 'humanisation' or 'moral evolution' or whatever you want to call it we can do away with this 'innate' competitivity and selfishness?
Hell, even if it isn't possible and it will never happen then do you not think that by at least trying to achieve it then we can make the world a better place?
Even if you could breed the drive to better oneself out of humanity what would you have accomplished? Likely nothing good whatsoever.
Couldn't have said it better than the mind rapist, but with the one stipulation for precisely why it fails. No amount of moralizing/indoctrination will change the fact that humans see the world from within themselves looking outwards. Everything that we think and do at a very low level has us, or "me", rather, at the center.
Giving to charities and the less fortunate is one thing, but the drive to center human behavior around helping others is, I think, impossible and unnatural. I'm not saying it's morally bankrupt (though many have argued more persuasively than I could that it is), but I can't see the end benefit to changing fundamentally how people behave like Communism commands.
In the end though, all we really need to go by are the proofs of the countries that are or were actively communist. The Soviet Union: oppression en masse of its people who lacked basic freedoms such as that of criticizing their government. China: ibid. The "Democratic Republic of North Korea": hell on earth. Cuba: a quasi-functioning remnant of a once-decent state.
What happened in every case? The people elected or who clawed their way to power exhibited the same traits that others have spoken of. Namely, the innate capacity of human greed and the drive for self-improvement.
You take those countries and as a whole there's not a single conceivable metric by which they might hold a candle to the predominantly capitalistic US. That's the basis for why people think that Communism is abhorrent; it's proved itself to be so time and time again!


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Samsung may have lost the battle to Apple in the court and have to shell out more then a bullion $ for patent infringement, but this has not stopped the company from releasing senseless, new Galaxy products. Today, the Samsung factory has churned out the Galaxy Player 5.8 sporting a 5.8-inch (duh!) LCD with a paltry qHD (960×540) resolution for a 16:9 aspect ratio, ideal for watching movies.
While the company did not mention anything about the processor or RAM of the media player, it did mention the Android 4.0 and TouchWIZ skin running on the device along with some other specs such as the 16/32GB of internal memory, a microSD card slot, a front-facing VGA camera, Bluetooth 4.0, and a beefy 2500mAh battery.
Like all the recent tablets from Samsung that don't look like the iPad, the Galaxy Player 5.8 also has its speakers in the front making them so much more useful.
The press release from Samsung does not mention anything about the pricing or the release date of the device, which should be available at IFA later this week.


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N° 53–2003: SUCCESS 2002 Student Contest award ceremony
28 August 2003
Today, at the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, the outcome of the SUCCESS 2002 Student Contest was announced to contestants eagerly waiting to see if their proposed experiment had won a prize in this competition organised every two years by the European Space Agency (ESA).
The SUCCESS Student Contest is open to European university students, up to Masters level, and from all disciplines. Entrants have to propose an experiment that could be flown on the International Space Station (ISS).
The students are challenged to imagine how the physical and operational environment on board the ISS could benefit their experiments. Parameters to consider include the absence of gravity, the vacuum of outer space, the high altitude above the Earth, and the isolated environment in which the astronauts live and work.
The aim of the contest is to turn students of today into Space Station users of tomorrow, sparking and developing an interest in seeing research in space as possible even for those still in education. For the 2002 contest experiment proposals were invited in disciplines as diverse as life sciences, physical sciences, space sciences, technology and Earth observation.
The students entering SUCCESS 2002 had to go through three phases. They first had to write an essay describing their experiment. A scientific board selected the best essays to move on to the second phase of the competition. Exactly 100 students entered the first phase and submitted essays. Nineteen came from universities in the United Kingdom, 18 from Italy, 13 from Germany, 8 from Russia, 7 from France, 4 from Finland, 4 from the Netherlands, 3 each from Belgium, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Hungary, 2 from Bulgaria and 1 each from Canada, India, Switzerland, the USA, Rumania, the Czech Republic and Belorus.
In a second phase 40 of the 100 initial participants were selected and invited to visit ESA's space research and technology centre, ESTEC, in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, in November 2002. Ten were from Italy, 8 from the United Kingdom, 4 from France, 4 from Germany, 3 from Sweden, 2 each from the Netherlands, Norway, Russia and Bulgaria, and 1 each from Finland, Portugal and Spain. During the visit they learned about ESA in general, the International Space Station in particular, about professional experiments and the other proposed student experiments. After the ESTEC visit a detailed experiment proposal had to be written in order to enter the third and final phase.
On the basis of these detailed proposals a scientific jury selected the three prizewinners:
· the first prize went to Adalberto Costessi from the University of Trieste (Italy) for the experiment proposal "Cellular and Molecular Study of Osteoblasts' Behaviour in Microgravity";
· the second prize to Roberto Rusconi from the Politecnico di Milano (Italy) for "Thermal Lens Measurement of the Soret Effect";
· the third prize to Eric Belin de Chantemèle from the University of Lyon 1 (France) for an experiment proposed on "Energy Requirement during a Three-Month Spaceflight".
The first prize is a paid one-year internship at ESA's space research and technology centre in the Netherlands. At ESTEC, Adalberto Costessi will work on his experiment with the possibility of qualifying it for flight on the ISS or an alternative research facility. The second prizewinner, Roberto Rusconi, is rewarded with a visit to the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, the Ariane launch site. The third prizewinner, Eric Belin de Chantemèle, receives a laptop computer.
The three prizewinning experiments dealt with the following scientific issues:
- First prize, "Cellular and Molecular Study of Osteoblasts' Behaviour in Microgravity" by Adalberto Costessi, University of Trieste:
Loss of bone mass is a major consequence for astronauts of extended periods spent in weightlessness conditions. Several studies have been performed on astronauts, establishing that bone mass loss in space is caused by a decrease in bone synthesising activity performed by osteoblast cells (the bone-building cells in the human body) and by a parallel slight increase in bone destruction, also called resorption, performed by osteoclast cells.
It has been demonstrated in several cell types that the absence of gravity directly influences molecular and cellular functions. In particular, both the cytoskeleton and intracellular signal transduction cascades appear to be sensitive to weightlessness. However, the underlying mechanism of these changes is far from being understood and the cellular gravity-sensing machinery is still mysterious.
Loss of bone mass in humans during long-duration spaceflights is analogous to osteoporosis on Earth. Osteoporosis is a disease marked by excessive skeletal fragility resulting in weakened bones that are susceptible to fracture. Millions of people around the world, estimated to be as much as 20% of the population, suffer from osteoporosis.
Until recently the general approach was to investigate general systematic changes related to bone loss, not the basic cellular responses to the lack of physical stress associated with weightlessness in space or with reduced mobility on the ground. In fact very little research has been aimed at understanding the molecular mechanisms of the reduced functionality of osteoblasts, the bone-building cells, which could lead to new treatments of osteoporosis. More than 120 experiments performed in the last 15 years have shown dramatic changes occurring in several types of single cells in weightlessness, but very little information is available on osteoblasts.
With this in mind, the experiment proposed by Adalberto Costessi involves the first use in space of "Proteomics Analysis". This type of analysis is based on 2D-gel electrophoresis coupled with mass spectrometry. It is able to separate and identify hundreds or thousands of different proteins from a certain cell culture and also evaluate quantitative differences of a protein between different samples. Since one of the key aims of scientific research in space is to obtain large amounts of data from the smallest and fastest experiment, the proteomics approach is particularly suitable for space research.
The objective of the experiment proposal is to study the signal transduction pathways of osteoblasts that regulate their most important physical functions (i.e. collagen synthesis, differentiation) in the ideal weightlessness conditions of the International Space Station. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of the reduced functionality of osteoblasts could lead to new treatments for bone mass loss due to long-term stays in space and for osteoporosis on Earth.
- Second prize, "Thermal Lens Measurement of the Soret Effect" by Roberto Rusconi, Politecnico di Milano:
This experiment proposal aims to ascertain the feasibility of investigating in space "Thermal Diffusion", also called "Soret Effect", a puzzling and still very poorly understood physical effect, by using a simple optical set-up that can be easily designed, is relatively inexpensive and can make very good use of weightlessness conditions. Thermal diffusion plays a crucial role in many naturally occurring processes ranging from convection in oceans to component segregation in solidifying volcanic lava, but it can also seriously affect industrial processes like the manufacture of semiconductors, oil-in-water emulsions or protein solutions for crystallisation.
The Soret effect still lacks a general microscopic picture. Optical techniques are privileged candidates for experimental methods to investigate the Soret effect. Yet, the classical optical techniques require sophisticated, complex, time-consuming and costly equipment, often unsuitable for sample manipulation. It is however possible to conceive an optical method, called "Thermal Lensing", where thermal gradients driving thermal diffusion are generated by a focused laser beam partially absorbed by the sample and the Soret effect is directly probed by detecting distortion of the beam profile induced by the refractive index profile due to the thermodiffusive motion. The basic optical system is extremely simple and the measurements are much faster.
Thermal lensing has long been used as an extremely sensitive spectroscopic tool for simple fluids, but in order to apply this method to the investigation of the Soret effect, two impediments have to be surmounted:
1) most of the interesting systems are aqueous solutions but water absorbs visible light very weakly, and 2) formation of the thermal lens is unavoidably associated with horizontal temperature gradients and associated thermally convective currents, which are relevant for liquid mixtures and could easily destroy Soret-induced concentration profiles.
Roberto Rusconi's experiment proposal intends to overcome the first difficulty by using a fibre-coupled laser tuned on a specific near-infrared water vibrational overtone and obtain reliable measurements on suspensions of particles having a density not too different from the solvent. The second difficulty, convection, can be reduced by using a specific optical and mechanical set-up structure, but is still partly unavoidable. Hence the strong case for performing these measurements under weightlessness conditions in space.
- Third prize, "Energy Requirement during a Three-Month Spaceflight" by Eric Belin de Chantemèle, University of Lyon 1:
Determination of food and water requirements of astronauts during spaceflight is a clear prerequisite for any long-term mission, whether on the International Space Station or on a mission to the Moon or Mars.
On the one hand, spaceflights are associated with a combined loss of fluids, bone, fat and muscle in a context of negative energy balance. If such a negative balance is acceptable for short-term missions due to the high energy density of fat mass, it becomes detrimental to astronauts on long-term missions because health and performance are affected.
On the other hand, knowledge of how much food and water is needed by astronauts in space is important when considering the quantity and cost of food and water to be transported together with the astronauts. For a crew of 6 astronauts leaving on a three-year mission to Mars as much as 26 tonnes of food will need to be carried. Even if this food is 90% dehydrated, it will still weigh 2.6 tonnes. Thus, even a 10% error in the estimation of energy requirements can have a large impact on the cost of the mission.
These considerations are particularly challenging when energy requirements for astronauts are still poorly characterised. This is because accurate energy requirements must be derived from free-living total energy expenditure measured by the state-of-art, cost-limited and expertise-requiring "Doubly-Labelled Water Method". In addition, it is essential to evaluate the resting metabolic rate, the diet induced thermogenesis and the activity energy expenditure during spaceflight.
The aim of Belin de Chantemèle's experiment proposal is to perform a comprehensive evaluation of energy and water metabolism adaptations to spaceflights using stable isotope, i.e. non-radioactive methodologies. The experiment protocol is simple, non-invasive and will provide very important information on energy and water metabolism, useful for long space missions: energy expenditure will be measured using the stable isotope doubly-labelled water method before, during and after a spaceflight. The different components of total energy expenditure will be determined by indirect calometry before and after spaceflight. The energy cost of physical activity will then be calculated by difference, and the body composition will be assessed by bio-impedance spectroscopy before and after the spaceflight.
For more information on the SUCCESS 2002 Student Contest in general, visit the SUCCESS website at
or contact:
Ulf Merbold
ISS Utilisation and Promotion Division
Directorate of Human Spaceflight
European Space Agency
Noordwijk (the Netherlands)
Tel: +31 (71) 565 4820
Fax: +31 (71) 565 3663
E-mail: email@example.com
The next SUCCESS Student Contest will take place in 2004.
For further information:
ESA Media Relations Service
Tel: +33(0)22.214.171.12455
Fax: +33(0)220.127.116.1190


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Chuck E Cheese knifing may be gang related
Man stabbed in at Leominster Chuck E Cheese
Police say a stabbing at a Chuck E Cheese restaurant in Leominster may have been gang related.
Isaac Ramos of Fitchburg was held on $5,000 bail after pleading not guilty Monday to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and disorderly conduct in connection with the stabbing Sunday at the kids' pizza parlor.
According to court documents, the 24-year-Ramos and 23-year-old Cesar Alicea-Romero had a history of hostility. What started as a fist fight, with the men rolling on the floor, ended with Ramos allegedly stabbing Alicea-Romero.
The Telegram & Gazette reports the victim was driven to a hospital by a relative with an arm injury.
Ramos told police Alicea-Romero approached him, threatened to kill him, and started hitting him. Police say in surveillance video Alicea-Romero appeared to flash gang signs.


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A.1 Support level definitions
This describes the levels of support for various Arm® Compiler 6 features.
Arm Compiler 6 is built on Clang and LLVM technology. Therefore it has more functionality than the set of product features described in the documentation. The following definitions clarify the levels of support and guarantees on functionality that are expected from these features.
Arm welcomes feedback regarding the use of all Arm Compiler 6 features, and endeavors to support users to a level that is appropriate for that feature. You can contact support at https://developer.arm.com/support.
Identification in the documentation
All features that are documented in the Arm Compiler 6 documentation are product features, except where explicitly stated. The limitations of non-product features are explicitly stated.
Product features
Product features are suitable for use in a production environment. The functionality is well-tested, and is expected to be stable across feature and update releases.
- Arm endeavors to give advance notice of significant functionality changes to product features.
- If you have a support and maintenance contract, Arm provides full support for use of all product features.
- Arm welcomes feedback on product features.
- Any issues with product features that Arm encounters or is made aware of are considered for fixing in future versions of Arm Compiler.
In addition to fully supported product features, some product features are only alpha or beta quality.
- Beta product features
Beta product features are implementation complete, but have not been sufficiently tested to be regarded as suitable for use in production environments.
Beta product features are indicated with [BETA].
- Arm endeavors to document known limitations on beta product features.
- Beta product features are expected to eventually become product features in a future release of Arm Compiler 6.
- Arm encourages the use of beta product features, and welcomes feedback on them.
- Any issues with beta product features that Arm encounters or is made aware of are considered for fixing in future versions of Arm Compiler.
- Alpha product features
Alpha product features are not implementation complete, and are subject to change in future releases, therefore the stability level is lower than in beta product features.
Alpha product features are indicated with [ALPHA].
- Arm endeavors to document known limitations of alpha product features.
- Arm encourages the use of alpha product features, and welcomes feedback on them.
- Any issues with alpha product features that Arm encounters or is made aware of are considered for fixing in future versions of Arm Compiler.
Community features
Arm Compiler 6 is built on LLVM technology and preserves the functionality of that technology where possible. This means that there are additional features available in Arm Compiler that are not listed in the documentation. These additional features are known as community features. For information on these community features, see the documentation for the Clang/LLVM project.
Where community features are referenced in the documentation, they are indicated with [COMMUNITY].
- Arm makes no claims about the quality level or the degree of functionality of these features, except when explicitly stated in this documentation.
- Functionality might change significantly between feature releases.
- Arm makes no guarantees that community features will remain functional across update releases, although changes are expected to be unlikely.
Some community features might become product features in the future, but Arm provides no roadmap for this. Arm is interested in understanding your use of these features, and welcomes feedback on them. Arm supports customers using these features on a best-effort basis, unless the features are unsupported. Arm accepts defect reports on these features, but does not guarantee that these issues will be fixed in future releases.
Guidance on use of community features
There are several factors to consider when assessing the likelihood of a community feature being functional:
The following figure shows the structure of the Arm Compiler 6 toolchain:
Figure A-1 Integration boundaries in Arm Compiler 6.
The dashed boxes are toolchain components, and any interaction between these components is an integration boundary. Community features that span an integration boundary might have significant limitations in functionality. The exception to this is if the interaction is codified in one of the standards supported by Arm Compiler 6. See Application Binary Interface (ABI) for the Arm® Architecture. Community features that do not span integration boundaries are more likely to work as expected.
- Features primarily used when targeting hosted environments such as Linux or BSD might have significant limitations, or might not be applicable, when targeting bare-metal environments.
- The Clang implementations of compiler features, particularly those that have been present for a long time in other toolchains, are likely to be mature. The functionality of new features, such as support for new language features, is likely to be less mature and therefore more likely to have limited functionality.
Unsupported features
With both the product and community feature categories, specific features and use-cases are known not to function correctly, or are not intended for use with Arm Compiler 6.
Limitations of product features are stated in the documentation. Arm cannot provide an exhaustive list of unsupported features or use-cases for community features. The known limitations on community features are listed in Community features.
List of known unsupported features
The following is an incomplete list of unsupported features, and might change over time:
- The Clang option
-stdlib=libstdc++is not supported.
- C++ static initialization of local variables is not thread-safe when linked against the standard C++ libraries. For thread-safety, you must provide your own implementation of thread-safe functions as described in Standard C++ library implementation definition.
NoteThis restriction does not apply to the [ALPHA]-supported multithreaded C++ libraries.
- Use of C11 library features is unsupported.
- Any community feature that exclusively pertains to non-Arm architectures is not supported.
- Compilation for targets that implement architectures older than Armv7 or Armv6‑M is not supported.
- The
long doubledata type is not supported for AArch64 state because of limitations in the current Arm C library.
- Complex numbers are not supported because of limitations in the current Arm C library.