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Martin Luther, (born November 10, 1483, Eisleben, Saxony [Germany]--died February 18, 1546, Eisleben), German theologian and religious reformer who was the catalyst of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Through his words and actions, Luther precipitated a movement that reformulated certain basic tenets of Christian belief and resulted in the division of Western Christendom between Roman Catholicism and the new Protestant traditions, mainly Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Anglican Communion, the Anabaptists, and the Antitrinitarians. He is one of the most influential figures in the history of Christianity.
Soon after Luther's birth, his family moved from Eisleben to the small town of Mansfeld, some 10 miles (16 km) to the northwest. His father, Hans Luther, who prospered in the local copper-refining business, became a town councillor of Mansfeld in 1492. There are few sources of information about Martin Luther's childhood apart from his recollections as an old man; understandably, they seem to be coloured by a certain romantic nostalgia.
Luther began his education at a Latin school in Mansfeld in the spring of 1488. There he received a thorough training in the Latin language and learned by rote the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Apostles' Creed, and morning and evening prayers. In 1497 Luther was sent to nearby Magdeburg to attend a school operated by the Brethren of the Common Life, a lay monastic order whose emphasis on personal piety apparently exerted a lasting influence on him. In 1501 he matriculated at the University of Erfurt, at the time one of the most distinguished universities in Germany. The matriculation records describe him as in habendo, meaning that he was ineligible for financial aid, an indirect testimonial to the financial success of his father. Luther took the customary course in the liberal arts and received the baccalaureate degree in 1502. Three years later he was awarded the master's degree. His studies gave him a thorough exposure to Scholasticism; many years later, he spoke of Aristotle and William of Ockham as "his teachers."
Having graduated from the arts faculty, Luther was eligible to pursue graduate work in one of the three "higher" disciplines--law, medicine, or theology. In accordance with the wishes of his father, he commenced the study of law. Proudly he purchased a copy of the Corpus Juris Canonici ("Corpus of Canon Law"), the collection of ecclesiastical law texts, and other important legal textbooks. Less than six weeks later, however, on July 17, 1505, Luther abandoned the study of law and entered the monastery in Erfurt of the Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine, a mendicant order founded in 1256. His explanation for his abrupt change of heart was that a violent thunderstorm near the village of Stotternheim had terrified him to such a degree that he involuntarily vowed to become a monk if he survived. Because his vow was clearly made under duress, Luther could easily have ignored it; the fact that he did not indicates that the thunderstorm experience was only a catalyst for much deeper motivations. Luther's father was understandably angry with him for abandoning a prestigious and lucrative career in law in favour of the monastery. In response to Luther's avowal that in the thunderstorm he had been "besieged by the terror and agony of sudden death," his father said only: "May it not prove an illusion and deception."
By the second half of the 15th century, the Augustinian order had become divided into two factions, one seeking reform in the direction of the order's original strict rule, the other favouring modifications. The monastery Luther joined in Erfurt was part of the strict, observant faction. Two months after entering the monastery, on September 15, 1505, Luther made his general confession and was admitted into the community as a novice.
Luther's new monastic life conformed to the commitment that countless men and women had made through the centuries--an existence devoted to an interweaving of daily work and worship. His spartan quarters consisted of an unheated cell furnished only with a table and chair. His daily activities were structured around the monastic rule and the observance of the canonical hours, which began at 2:00 in the morning. In the fall of 1506, he was fully admitted to the order and began to prepare for his ordination to the priesthood. He celebrated his first mass in May 1507 with a great deal of fear and trembling, according to his own recollection.
But Luther would not settle for the anonymous and routine existence of a monk. In 1507 he began the study of theology at the University of Erfurt. Transferred to the Augustinian monastery at Wittenberg in the fall of 1508, he continued his studies at the university there. Because the university at Wittenberg was new (it was founded in 1502), its degree requirements were fairly lenient. After only a year of study, Luther had completed the requirements not only for the baccalaureate in Bible but also for the next-higher theological degree, that of Sententiarius, which would qualify him to teach Peter Lombard's Four Books of Sentences (Sententiarum libri IV), the standard theological textbook of the time. Because he was transferred back to Erfurt in the fall of 1509, however, the university at Wittenberg could not confer the degrees on him. Luther then unabashedly petitioned the Erfurt faculty to confer the degrees. His request, though unusual, was altogether proper, and in the end it was granted.
His subsequent studies toward a doctoral degree in theology were interrupted, probably between the fall of 1510 and the spring of 1511, by his assignment to represent the observant German Augustinian monasteries in Rome. At issue was a papal decree by Pope Julius II that had administratively merged the observant and the nonobservant houses of the order. It is indicative of Luther's emerging role in his order that he was chosen, along with a monastic brother from Nurnberg, to make the case for the observant houses in their appeal of the ruling to the pope. The mission proved to be unsuccessful, however, because the pope's mind was already made up. Luther's comments in later years suggest that the mission made a profoundly negative impression on him: he found in Rome a lack of spirituality at the very heart of Western Christendom.
Soon after his return Luther transferred to the Wittenberg monastery to finish his studies at the university there. He received his doctorate in the fall of 1512 and assumed the professorship in biblical studies, which was supplied by the Augustinian order. At the same time, his administrative responsibilities in the Wittenberg monastery and the Augustinian order increased, and he began to publish theological writings, such as the 97 theses entitled Disputation Against Scholastic Theology.
Although there is some uncertainty about the details of Luther's academic teaching, it is known that he offered courses on several biblical books--two on the book of Psalms--as well as on St. Paul's epistles to the Romans, the Galatians, and the Hebrews. From all accounts Luther was a stimulating lecturer. One student reported that he was
a man of middle stature, with a voice that combined sharpness in the enunciation of syllables and words, and softness in tone. He spoke neither too quickly nor too slowly, but at an even pace, without hesitation and very clearly.
Scholars have scrutinized Luther's lecture notes for hints of a developing new theology, but the results have been inconclusive. Nor do the notes give any indication of a deep spiritual struggle, which Luther in later years associated with this period in his life.
In the fall of 1517 an ostensibly innocuous event quickly made Luther's name a household word in Germany. Irritated by Johann Tetzel, a Dominican friar who was reported to have preached to the faithful that the purchase of a letter of indulgence entailed the forgiveness of sins, Luther drafted a set of propositions for the purpose of conducting an academic debate on indulgences at the university in Wittenberg. He dispatched a copy of the Ninety-five Theses to Tetzel's superior, Archbishop Albert of Mainz, along with a request that Albert put a stop to Tetzel's extravagant preaching; he also sent copies to a number of friends. Before long, Albert formally requested that official proceedings be commenced in Rome to ascertain the work's orthodoxy. Meanwhile, it began to be circulated in Germany, together with some explanatory publications by Luther.
Luther clearly intended the Ninety-five Theses to be subservient to the church and the pope, and their overall tone is accordingly searching rather than doctrinaire. Nevertheless, there is a detectable undercurrent of "reforming" sentiment in the work--expressed in several theses beginning with the phrase "Christians are to be taught that..."--as well as some openly provocative statements. Thesis 86, for example, asks,
Why does not the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus, build the basilica of St. Peter with his own money rather than with the money of poor believers?
Scholars have disagreed about how early Luther began to formulate the theological positions that eventually caused him to part ways with the church. If he had done so by the fall of 1517, then the Ninety-five Theses must be viewed as the first--albeit hesitant--manifesto of a new theology. Most scholars, however, believe that Luther's conversion was a lengthy process that did not culminate until well after the indulgences controversy was in full swing in the spring of 1518. Indeed, his conversion to a new understanding of the gospel was heavily influenced by the controversy, according to this view.
By the end of 1518, according to most scholars, Luther had reached a new understanding of the pivotal Christian notion of salvation, or reconciliation with God. Over the centuries, the church had conceived the means of salvation in a variety of ways, but common to all of them was the idea that salvation is jointly effected by humans and by God--by humans through marshalling their will to do good works and thereby to please God and by God through his offer of forgiving grace. Luther broke dramatically with this tradition by asserting that humans can contribute nothing to their salvation: salvation is, fully and completely, a work of divine grace.
Luther's understanding came to him after a long inner conflict in which he agonized, even despaired, over his inability to marshal his will adequately to do good works. While meditating on The Letter of Paul to the Romans (1:17)--in which the Apostle declares, "For in it [i.e., the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith: as it is written, 'He who through faith is righteous shall live'"--Luther experienced an illumination that he later described as a kind of conversion. "It was as if the very gates of heaven had opened before me," he wrote. The dramatic and intensely personal nature of this experience helps to explain Luther's determined refusal, during the indulgences controversy, to recant his theological views.
By the summer of 1518 the causa Lutheri ("the case of Luther") had progressed far enough to require that Luther present himself in Rome to be examined on his teachings. After his territorial ruler, the elector Frederick III of Saxony, intervened on his behalf, Luther was summoned instead to the southern German city of Augsburg, where an imperial Diet was in session. Frederick took action not because he supported Luther's teachings--which were still being formed--but because he felt that it was his responsibility as a prince to ensure that his subject was treated fairly. Rome, for its part, acceded to Frederick's wishes because it needed German financial support for a planned military campaign that it hoped to sponsor against the Ottoman Empire--whose forces were poised to invade central Europe from Hungary--and because Frederick was one of the seven electors who would choose the successor of the ailing Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I. The papacy had a vital interest in the outcome of this election.
Against these larger political issues, the case of the Wittenberg professor paled in importance. Luther's antagonist at the imperial Diet, Cardinal Cajetan, was head of the Dominican order, an ardent defender of the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, and one of the most learned men in the Roman Curia. Cajetan had taken his assignment seriously and was thus well prepared for his interrogation of Luther. Once the two men met, their fundamental differences quickly became apparent. Their encounter was made even more difficult by the fact that neither had great respect for the other--Cajetan observed that Luther had "ominous eyes and wondrous fantasies in his head," while Luther remarked that Cajetan may well be "a famous Thomist, but he is an evasive, obscure, and unintelligible theologian."
In Cajetan's view the key issues were Luther's denial that the church is empowered to distribute as indulgences the infinite "treasury of merits" accumulated by Christ on the cross--on this point Luther directly contradicted the papal bull Unigenitus Dei Filius (1343; "Only Begotten Son of God") of Clement VI--and Luther's insistence that faith is indispensable for justification. After three days of discussion (October 12-14), Cajetan advised Luther that further conversations were useless unless he was willing to recant. Luther immediately fled Augsburg and returned to Wittenberg, where he issued an appeal for a general council of the church to hear his case.
Luther had reason to be nervous. Papal instructions from August had empowered Cajetan to have Luther apprehended and brought to Rome for further examination. On November 9, 1518, Pope Leo X issued the bull Cum postquam ("When After"), which defined the doctrine of indulgences and addressed the issue of the authority of the church to absolve the faithful from temporal punishment. Luther's views were declared to be in conflict with the teaching of the church.
Well aware that he was the cause of the controversy and that in Cum postquam his doctrines had been condemned by the pope himself, Luther agreed to refrain from participating in the public debate. Others, however, promptly took his place, sounding the knell of reform in both church and society. The controversy was drawing participants from wider circles and addressing broader and weightier theological issues, the most important of which was the question of the authority of the church and the pope. Eventually, a bitter dispute between Andreas Bodenstein von Carlstadt, a colleague of Luther at Wittenberg, and Johann Eck, a theologian from Ingolstadt and an able defender of the church, drew Luther back into the fray. Because the entire controversy was still considered an academic matter, Eck, Carlstadt, and Luther agreed to a public debate, which took place in Leipzig in June 1519.
The setting was hardly a friendly one for Luther and Carlstadt, because Duke George of Saxony had already established himself as a staunch defender of the church. Upon hearing the sermon of the opening ceremony, which exhorted the participants to adhere to the truth in their debating, George remarked that he had not realized that theologians were so godless as to need such preaching. The initial debate between Eck and Carlstadt covered extensive theological ground but was listless. Luther's debate with Eck was more lively, as Eck, a skillful debater, repeatedly sought to show that Luther's position on the issue of papal primacy was identical to that of Jan Hus, the Bohemian theologian who was condemned for heresy at the Council of Constance (1414-18). This was a conclusion calculated to shock the audience at Leipzig, whose university had been founded in the previous century by refugees from the Hussite-dominated University of Prague. Luther repeatedly denied the charge but then noted that some of Hus's opinions, such as his assertion that there is one holy Catholic church, were not heretical. Eck's prodding led Luther to state that even general councils, such as the Council of Constance, can be in error when they promulgate opinions not de fide (concerning the faith). This admission was perceived as damaging to Luther's cause and allowed Eck to boast that he had succeeded in revealing Luther's true beliefs.
Meanwhile, after a delay caused by the election of the new German emperor, the formal ecclesiastical proceedings against Luther were revived in the fall of 1519. In January 1520 a consistory heard the recommendation that Luther's orthodoxy be examined, and one month later a papal commission concluded that Luther's teachings were heretical. Because this conclusion seemed hasty to some members of the Curia, another commission, consisting of the heads of the several important monastic orders, was convened, and it rendered the surprisingly mild judgment that Luther's propositions were "scandalous and offensive to pious ears" but not heretical. After Eck appeared in Rome and made dire pronouncements on the situation in Germany, yet another examination of Luther's writings was undertaken. Finally, on June 15, 1520, Leo issued the bull Exsurge Domine ("Arise O Lord"), which charged that 41 sentences in Luther's various writings were "heretical, scandalous, offensive to pious ears," though it did not specify which sentences had received what verdict. Luther was given 60 days upon receiving the bull to recant and another 60 days to report his recantation to Rome.
At first Luther believed that the story of the bull was a malicious rumour spread by Eck. When the reality of his condemnation became clear, however, he responded belligerently in a tract titled Against the Execrable Bull of the Antichrist. Upon the expiration of the 60-day period stipulated in the bull, on December 10, 1520, Luther cancelled his classes, marched to a bonfire started by his students outside one of the city gates, and threw a copy of the bull into the fire.
The ensuing bull of excommunication, Decet Romanum Pontificem ("It Pleases the Roman Pontiff"), was published on January 3, 1521. Martin Luther was formally declared a heretic. Ordinarily, those condemned as heretics were apprehended by an authority of the secular government and put to death by burning. In Luther's case, however, a complex set of factors made such punishment impossible. The new German king (and Holy Roman emperor), Charles V, had agreed as a condition of his election that no German would be convicted without a proper hearing; many, including Luther himself, were convinced that Luther had not been granted this right. Others noted various formal deficiencies in Exsurge Domine, including the fact that it did not correctly quote Luther and that one of the sentences it condemned was actually written by another author. Still others thought that Luther's call for reform deserved a more serious hearing. A proposal was therefore circulated that Luther should be given a formal hearing when the imperial Diet convened in Worms later in the spring.
Understandably, the papal nuncio Girolamo Aleandro, who represented the Curia in the Holy Roman Empire, vehemently rejected this idea. His position was clear: a convicted heretic did not warrant a hearing. The Diet could do nothing other than endorse the ecclesiastical verdict and bring the heretic to his deserved judgment. Charles shared Aleandro's sentiment but realized that the idea of giving Luther a hearing enjoyed widespread support in Germany. Charles's adviser Mercurino Gattinara, mindful of the need for good relations with the estates (the three main orders of society--clergy, nobility, and townspeople), repeatedly urged the emperor not to issue an edict against Luther without their full consent. Gattinara's caution was justified, because in February the estates refused to support an edict condemning Luther's writings and instead urged that, in view of the restlessness of the commoners, Luther be cited to appear before the Diet "to the benefit and advantage of the entire German nation, the Holy Roman Empire, our Christian faith, and all estates." Charles acceded, and on March 6, 1521, he issued a formal invitation to Luther to appear before the estates assembled in Worms. Charles's apparent surrender was perhaps the only acceptable resolution of the matter; even Aleandro could easily convince himself that Luther's citation was in the best interest of the church. If Luther recanted, the problem of his heresy would be removed; if he did not, the estates could no longer refuse to endorse formal action against him.
Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms on April 17, 1521. He was informed that he had been called to the meeting to acknowledge as his own the books that had been published in his name and to repudiate them. He briefly acknowledged the books but requested time to ponder his second answer, which was granted. The following day Luther admitted that he had used inappropriate language but declared that he could not and would not recant the substance of his writings. He refused to repudiate his works unless convinced of error by Scripture or by reason. Otherwise, he stated, his conscience was bound by the Word of God. According to a traditional but apocryphal account, he ended his statement with the words, "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen."
Following his appearance, Luther participated in intense discussions involving representatives of the emperor, Aleandro, and the Saxon elector Frederick. Although every effort was made to induce Luther to recant, in the end the discussions failed over his refusal to repudiate a single sentence from the 41 cited in the papal bull. But behind that stood the charge that Luther, a single individual, presumed to challenge 1,500 years of Christian theological consensus. On April 26 Luther hurriedly left Worms, and on May 8 Charles drew up an edict against him. Charles undertook one more unsuccessful effort to obtain the support of the estates, which continued to fear that Luther's condemnation would incite rebellion among the commoners. The Diet then officially adjourned. On May 25, after the elector Joachim Brandenburg assured the emperor of the support of the few rulers who remained in Worms, Charles signed the edict against Luther.
The document enumerated Luther's errors along the lines of Exsurge Domine, declared Luther and his followers (some of whom were identified by name) to be political outlaws, and ordered his writings to be burned. Thus, the causa Lutheri was considered closed. It was enormously important, however, that doubts about the propriety of the edict were voiced at once. Its claim to represent the "unanimous consent of the estates" was plainly incorrect, since by the end of May most of the rulers had long since left Worms. Meanwhile, on his journey back to Wittenberg, Luther was "kidnapped" by soldiers of Frederick and taken secretly to Wartburg Castle, near the town of Eisenach, where he remained in hiding for the better part of a year. During this period few people knew of Luther's whereabouts; most thought he was dead.
During his stay in the Wartburg, Luther began work on what proved to be one of his foremost achievements--the translation of the New Testament into the German vernacular. This task was an obvious ramification of his insistence that the Bible alone is the source of Christian truth and his related belief that everyone is capable of understanding the biblical message. Luther's translation profoundly affected the development of the written German language. The precedent he set was followed by other scholars, whose work made the Bible widely available in the vernacular and contributed significantly to the emergence of national languages.
Attempts to carry out the Edict of Worms were largely unsuccessful. Although Roman Catholic rulers sought determinedly to suppress Luther and his followers, within two years it had become obvious that the movement for reform was too strong. By March 1522, when Luther returned to Wittenberg, the effort to put reform into practice had generated riots and popular protests that threatened to undermine law and order.
Luther's attitude toward these developments was conservative. He did not believe that change should occur hurriedly. In accordance with his notion of "making haste slowly," he managed to control the course of reform in Wittenberg, where his influence continued to be strong. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that Luther's significance as a public figure began to decline after 1522. This is not to say that he did not play a crucial role in the continuing course of events--for he did. Nor is this to say that his influence may not be discerned after 1522--for it can. After the Edict of Worms, however, the cause of reform, of whatever sort, became a legal and political struggle rather than a theological one. The crucial decisions were now made in the halls of government and not in the studies of the theologians. Moreover, by 1523 various other reformers, including Thomas Muntzer, Huldrych Zwingli, and Martin Bucer, had arisen to challenge Luther's primacy of place and to put forward a more radical vision of reform in church and society.
Beginning in the summer of 1524, large numbers of peasants in southwestern Germany staged a series of uprisings that were partly inspired by Luther's reform proposals, though they also addressed long-standing economic and political grievances. By the spring of 1525 the rebellion, known as the Peasants' War, had spread to much of central Germany. The peasants, who were supported by the reformer Muntzer, published their grievances in a manifesto titled "The Twelve Articles of the Peasants"; the document is notable for its declaration that the rightness of the peasants' demands should be judged by the Word of God, a notion derived directly from Luther's teaching that the Bible is the sole guide in matters of morality and belief. Luther wrote two responses--Admonition to Peace Concerning the Twelve Articles of the Peasants, which expressed sympathy for the peasants, and Against the Murderous and Robbing Hordes of the Peasants, which vehemently denounced them. Both works represented a shift away from his earlier vision of reform as encompassing societal as well as religious issues. It is likely that they helped to alienate the peasants from Luther's cause.
Luther faced other challenges in the mid-1520s. His literary feud with the great Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus came to an unfortunate conclusion when the two failed to find common ground. Their theological dispute concerned the issue of whether humans were free to contribute to and participate in their own salvation. Erasmus, who took the affirmative view, argued that Luther's insistence on the radical priority of grace undermined all human ethical effort. Luther insisted that Erasmus's position reduced the great soteriological drama of the Incarnation and the cross to shallow moral concepts.
In 1525 Luther was isolated from various other reformers in a controversy over the meaning of the Eucharist, or the Lord's Supper. The dispute concerned the proper interpretation of Jesus' words of institution when he said, "This is my body...This is my blood." Whereas Zwingli argued that these words had to be understood symbolically, as "This symbolizes my body...This symbolizes my blood," Luther argued strenuously for a literal interpretation. Accordingly, Zwingli held that Jesus was spiritually but not physically present in the communion host, whereas Luther taught that Jesus was really and bodily present. The theological disagreement was initially pursued by several southern German reformers, such as Johannes Brenz, but after 1527 Luther and Zwingli confronted each other directly, with increasing rancour and vehemence, particularly from Luther. As far as he was concerned, Zwingli was an "enthusiast" who did not take the plain words of Scripture seriously. Thus, the reform movement became a house that was publicly divided.
In the view of some, notably Landgrave Philip of Hesse, this division had serious political implications. There was no doubt that the emperor and the princes of the Catholic territories were determined to suppress the new Lutheran heresy, if necessary by force. The disagreement over communion precluded one strategy of dealing with this ominous Catholic threat, namely by establishing a united Protestant political (and military) front. Whereas Luther, in his wonderful otherworldliness, gravely doubted the wisdom of any effort to protect the gospel by military means, Zwingli envisioned a comprehensive anti-Catholic political front that would reach from Zurich to Denmark. When Philip first entertained the notion of a colloquy between Zwingli, Luther, and a number of other reformers, he was prompted by his desire to create the basis of a Protestant political alliance. Luther was initially reluctant and had to be persuaded to attend the meeting, which was held in Marburg on October 1-4, 1529 (see Marburg, Colloquy of). From the outset Luther made it clear that he would not change his views: he took a piece of chalk and wrote the Latin version of the words of institution, "Hoc est corpus meum" ("This is my body"), on the table. In the end the two sides managed to fashion a contorted agreement, but the deep division within Protestantism remained.
On June 13, 1525, Luther married Katherine of Bora, a former nun. Katherine had fled her convent together with eight other nuns and was staying in the house of the Wittenberg town secretary. While the other nuns soon returned to their families or married, Katherine remained without support. Luther was likewise at the time the only remaining resident in what had been the Augustinian monastery in Wittenberg; the other monks had either thrown off the habit or moved to a staunchly Catholic area. Luther's decision to marry Katherine was the result of a number of factors. Understandably, he felt responsible for her plight, since it was his preaching that had prompted her to flee the convent. Moreover, he had repeatedly written, most significantly in 1523, that marriage is an honourable order of creation, and he regarded the Roman Catholic Church's insistence on clerical celibacy as the work of the Devil. Finally, he believed that the unrest in Germany, epitomized in the bloody Peasants' War, was a manifestation of God's wrath and a sign that the end of the world was at hand. He thus conceived his marriage as a vindication, in these last days, of God's true order for humankind.
While Luther's enemies indulged themselves in sarcastic pronouncements upon his matrimony--Erasmus remarked that what had begun as tragedy had turned into comedy--his friends and supporters were chagrined over what they took to be the poor timing of his decision. (It is noteworthy that Luther was not the first of the reformers to marry.) Katherine of Bora proved to be a splendid helpmate for Luther. Table Talks, a collection of Luther's comments at the dinner table as recorded by one of his student boarders, pays tribute to "Dr. Katie" as a skillful household manager and as a partner in theological conversations. The couple had five children: Johannes, Magdalene, Martin, Paul, and Margarete. Luther's letters to his children, as well as his deep sadness at the loss of his daughter Magdalene--who died in his arms in September 1542--are indicative of the warm relationships that characterized his family and marriage.
As a declared heretic and public outlaw, Luther was forced to stay out of the political and religious struggle over the enforcement of the Edict of Worms. Sympathetic rulers and city councils became the protagonists for Luther's cause and the cause of reform. When Charles V convened a Diet to meet at Augsburg in 1530 to address unresolved religious issues, Luther himself could not be present, though he managed to travel as far south as Coburg--still some 100 miles north of Augsburg--to follow developments at the Diet. In Augsburg it fell to Luther's young Wittenberg colleague Philipp Melanchthon to represent the Protestants. Melanchthon's summary of the reformers' beliefs, the Augsburg Confession, quickly became the guiding theological document for the emerging Lutheran tradition.
Luther's role in the Reformation after 1525 was that of theologian, adviser, and facilitator but not that of a man of action. Biographies of Luther accordingly have a tendency to end their story with his marriage in 1525. Such accounts gallantly omit the last 20 years of his life, during which much happened. The problem is not just that the cause of the new Protestant churches that Luther had helped to establish was essentially pursued without his direct involvement, but also that the Luther of these later years appears less attractive, less winsome, less appealing than the earlier Luther who defiantly faced emperor and empire at Worms. Repeatedly drawn into fierce controversies during the last decade of his life, Luther emerges as a different figure--irascible, dogmatic, and insecure. His tone became strident and shrill, whether in comments about the Anabaptists, the pope, or the Jews. In each instance his pronouncements were virulent: the Anabaptists should be hanged as seditionists, the pope was the Antichrist, the Jews should be expelled and their synagogues burned. Such were hardly irenic words from a minister of the gospel, and none of the explanations that have been offered--his deteriorating health and chronic pain, his expectation of the imminent end of the world, his deep disappointment over the failure of true religious reform--seem satisfactory.
In 1539 Luther became embroiled in a scandal surrounding the bigamy of Philip, landgrave of Hesse. Like many other crowned heads, Philip lived in a dynastically arranged marriage with a wife for whom he had no affection. Engaging in extramarital relationships disturbed his conscience, however, so that for years he felt unworthy to receive communion. His eyes fell on one of his wife's ladies-in-waiting, who insisted on marriage. Philip turned to Luther and the Wittenberg theologians for advice. In his response, which he amply augmented with biblical references, Luther noted that the patriarchs of the Old Testament had been married to more than one wife and that, as a special dispensation, polygamy was still possible. Philip accordingly entered into a second marriage secretly, but before long it became known--as did Luther's role in bringing it about.
From the mid-1530s Luther was plagued by kidney stones and an obvious coronary condition. Somewhat sheepishly, he attributed his poor health to the severity of his life in the monastery. He nevertheless continued his academic teaching--from 1535 to 1545 he lectured on the book of Genesis, one of his most insightful biblical expositions--and preached regularly at the city church until his colleague Johannes Bugenhagen assumed that responsibility. Even then, Luther continued to preach in the Augustinian monastery. After the death of one of his oldest friends, Nikolaus Hausmann, in 1538 and that of his daughter Magdalene four years later, references to death became increasingly abundant in Luther's correspondence. Thus he wrote in a June 1543 letter to a friend:
I desire that there be given me a good little hour when I can move onward to God. I have had enough. I am tired. I have become nothing. Do pray earnestly for me so that the Lord may take my soul in peace.
In February 1546 Luther journeyed, despite his failing health, to Eisleben, the town where he was born. He set out to mediate an embarrassing quarrel between two young and arrogant noblemen, the counts Albrecht and Gebhard of Mansfeld. He was successful, and he so informed his wife in what proved to be his last letter. One day later, on February 18, death came. His body was interred in the Castle Church in Wittenberg.
Martin Luther is assuredly one of the most influential figures in Western civilization during the last millennium. He was the catalyst for the division of Western Christendom into several churches, but he also left a host of cultural legacies, such as the emphasis on vernacular language. He was primarily a theologian, and there is a great wealth of insights in his writings, which in their definitive scholarly edition (the so-called Weimar Edition) comprise more than 100 folio volumes. But he was not a systematic theological thinker. Much like St. Augustine in late antiquity, Luther was what might be called a polemical theologian. Most of his writings --such as Bondage of the Will against Erasmus and That These Words 'This Is My Body' Still Stand Against all Enthusiasts against Zwingli--were forged in the heat of controversy and were inescapably given to one-sided pronouncements, which are not easy to reconcile with positions he took in other writings. It is, therefore, not easy to find agreement on the elements of Luther's theology.
Moreover, the assessment of Luther's theological significance was for centuries altogether dependent on the ecclesiastical orientation of the critic. Protestant scholars viewed him as the most stunning exponent of the authentic Christian faith since the time of the Apostles, while Catholics viewed him as the epitome of theological ignorance and personal immorality. These embarrassingly partisan perspectives have changed in recent decades, and a less confessionally oriented picture of Luther has emerged.
Certain key tenets of Luther's theology have shaped Protestant Christianity since the 16th century. They include his insistence on the Bible, the Word of God, as the only source of religious authority, a dogma known as sola Scriptura; his emphasis on the centrality of grace, appropriated by faith, as the sole means of human salvation; and his understanding of the church as a community of the faithful--a priesthood of all believers--rather than as a hierarchical structure with a prominent division between clergy and laity. Luther was not the first to express these notions, and indeed recent scholarship on the 15th century has shown that much of what was traditionally considered Luther's revolutionary innovation had striking antecedents. Nevertheless, the vigour and centrality that these ideas received in Luther's thought made them in important respects dramatically new. Certain corollaries of Luther's central teachings also made his achievement new and noteworthy. His insistence, for example, that sacred Scripture be available to commoners prompted him not only to translate the Bible into German but also to compose hymns and to advocate the establishment of schools in the cities.
Recent interpreters of Luther have attempted to understand his thought in terms of his struggle against the overpowering reality of the Devil or in terms of his intense fear of a death that would permanently separate him from God. Although there is evidence to support both views, neither quite captures Luther's spiritual essence. What seems to characterize him more than anything else is an almost childlike trust in God's overarching forgiveness and acceptance. Luther talked much about his tentationes ("temptations"), by which he meant his doubts about whether this divine forgiveness was real. But he overcame these doubts, and his life thereafter was one of joyous and spontaneous trust in God's love and goodness toward him and all sinners. Luther called this "Christian freedom."
The centre of scholarly attention in Luther studies in the late 20th century was Luther's understanding of the proper role of the Christian in society and politics. According to many scholars, Luther's disavowal of the German peasants in 1525 and his notion that, as he once put it, "the Gospel has nothing to do with politics" facilitated a tendency toward political passivity among Protestant Christians in Germany. Likewise, his strident pronouncements against the Jews, especially toward the end of his life, have raised the question of whether Luther significantly encouraged the development of German anti-Semitism. Although many scholars have taken this view, this perspective puts far too much emphasis on Luther and not enough on the larger peculiarities of German history.
Luther's notions developed in opposition to the belief developed by the medieval Catholic church that all of society wore a Christian mantle. The notion of a "Christian" politics or a "Christian" economics was anathema to Luther. However, this did not mean that the public realm had no principles that needed to be honoured. What Luther rejected was the notion that there was a uniquely "Christian" approach to these realms; uniquely Christian, Luther insisted, was only that which pertained to Jesus' salvational work of redemption.
Amazon link: Martin Luther
Martin Luther, a 16th-century monk and theologian, was one of the most significant figures in Christian history. His beliefs helped birth the Reformation—which would give rise to Protestantism as the third major force within Christendom, alongside Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. His denunciation of the Catholic church's doctrine and practices triggered a series of proceedings that culminated in the Edict of Worms, a document that proclaimed him a heretic and declared war on Protestantism. But his actions had already set the Reformation in motion, which would introduce new religious, political, and economic trajectories to Europe and the world.
Lutheranism is one of the five major strands of Protestantism. It is rooted in the teachings of the 16th-century theologian Martin Luther. Lutheranism's tenets—at odds with many aspects of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy—include the rejection of the hierarchical split between clergy and laity, in favor of Scripture as the ultimate authority in matters of faith (sola scriptura); the recognition of only two of the seven traditionally recognized sacraments, namely baptism and the Eucharist; and the understanding that sinners are saved solely by God's grace (sola gratia), by way of their faith in Christ (sola fide). Lutheranism now has over 65 million adherents.
Martin Luther's understanding of faith departed from the prevailing Catholic belief system in many ways: he believed that salvation is a gift God alone grants to sinners who passively affirm their faith in Christ, rather than something a sinner can actively obtain through the performance of good works; that the Eucharist is a sacrament that undergoes consubstantiation as opposed to transubstantiation; and that the church is an egalitarian "priesthood of all believers" and not hierarchically divided between laity and clergy. His translation of the Bible into German vernacular lessened the laity's dependence on what he saw as a predatory ecclesiastical authority.
Martin Luther's teachings had consequences for Western civilization beyond just spawning a new Christian movement. His rhetoric was appropriated by people seeking other types of social reform, such as peasants during the Peasants' War (1524–25). His translation of the Bible into the vernacular came to bear heavily on the development of the German language. And as Max Weber famously argued, the Protestant belief that emerged from Luther's teachings paved the way for the emergence of capitalism, a paradigmatic shift that had implications that were perhaps even more far-reaching than the Reformation itself.
Martin Luther did have a family, which reflects one of the radical aspects of his interpretation of Christianity: that he, even as an ordained priest, could marry and have sex. In 1525 he married Katherina von Bora, a former nun remembered by Luther's students as being well versed in theology. By all accounts, Katherina and Luther had a warm and loving family life, raising five children together. The death of their daughter Magdalene affected Luther profoundly, and that loss—along with the death of a close friend of his not long before—may explain the fixation on death that characterizes his later writings.


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Hi all,
I've been using OpenVG on RPi3 just for few weeks, so I am a very beginner about it. I'm not reaching "good" time performances for my specific application. Could you possibly answer the following questions:
- Do specific OpenVG (or other) settings exist to increase time performances? I tried by increasing memory for GPU, by overclocking RPi, but the results did not change.
- Do I have to explicitely enable the hardware acceleration?
- I started by referring to Shape library and its examples. Where could I find futher examples about OpenVG?

subset: commoncrawl


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Most surveys take just a few minutes and are conducted online. Watch your email inbox for survey announcements.
ACHA conducts several surveys on a variety of issues in order to have accurate data about the health of college students. Explore below to see data from past surveys and to find out how you can participate.
The ACHA-NCHA is a nationally recognized research survey that
provides precise data about students' health habits, behaviors, and
perceptions. College students are a diverse yet distinct
population with specific health risks and needs. Having current,
relevant data about your students' health can only help you to enhance
campuswide health promotion and prevention services. Click below to
find out how you can participate in the survey or to download published
articles and comprehensive data reports of the results from the
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This annual survey collects data about sexual and reproductive health
services on college campuses and serves as an important benchmarking
tool regarding management strategies and data collection, as well as a
means to assess educational efforts and compare health center services.
Learn More
Because having accurate data about the health of college students is
an important goal for ACHA, the association conducts several surveys on a
variety of issues. Data from most of these surveys is provided to
members so that they can use the data to improve their health services.
As a member, you can participate in these surveys that add to the
knowledge base on student health services.
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Mary Meuser Memorial Library provides free library services to meet the educational, informational, and recreational needs of the residents of the communities that make up the Wilson Area School District.
The Library came to the people of the Wilson Borough area through the generosity of Frederick H. Meuser (1868-1960). One of Wilson's first land developers, he was also very active in community affairs. To the people of Wilson Borough he willed the land for Meuser Park and proposed that the Borough and the Wilson Area School District found and support the Library. His only conditions were that the Library be named in memory of his wife, Mary (1877-1957), and that his wife's oil paintings be displayed in the Library. The Meuser home, which was considered a mansion at the time of its construction in 1924, was opened as a public library on October 15, 1962.


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Alexandria Eregbu @ MCA
Alexandria Eregbu performs a scene from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man—reinterpreting Louis Armstrong's simultaneous playing and singing of "(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue." This perfo
Alexandria Eregbu performs a scene from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man—reinterpreting Louis Armstrong's simultaneous playing and singing of "(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue." This perfo
Since 2014 "Articulate" has been producing content aimed at how artworks and artists transform the way we see and understand the world.
The DePaul Art Museum is circulating a questionairre to better understand what Chicago-based artists need and how institutions can better serve those needs.
Please consider donating online to CAC on Tuesday, November 28 for #ILGive on #GivingTuesday, and your gift will make a bigger impact on Chicago's arts community!
THE SUB-MISSION is pleased to announce A Study in Rhyme & Song: Ten Little Indians, an exhibition by Sad
Proceeds from this auction directly support The Chicago Artists Coalition's year-round programs and exhibitions and the artists and galleries who contributed work.
The writer Rebecca Bengal profiles JLin (Jerrilynn Patton), "a producer at the vanguard of electronic music", coming out of Chicago & Northwest Indiana's dance music scene.
Kerry Cordoza recaps the Open Engagement conference that took place at the University of Illinois at Chicago as well as a constellation of sites across the city.
Since its foundation in 2009, High Concept Labs ("HCL") has been providing Chicago artists with flexible, affordable space in which to develop projects and new works.
David Byrne's "What Good Are the Arts" responds to the proposed Trump administration budget cuts and an address Byrne gave at his local City Hall. Read an excerpt of his article below:
Rhizome has launched a new user-friendly web archiving application, Webrecorder Player, and now wants to empower regular users to take ownership of the web archiving process, and to take better grasp of access.
Sustain Arts launched their Chicagoland platform on January 26, 2017 at the Chicago Cultural Center...
Currently on view through January 27th at Columbia College's Hokin Gallery is IN THE CIRCLE: CHICAGO FOOTWORK, an exhibition curated by South Side footwork crew The Era and Libby Buck.
De Lara sat down with CAR to discuss his path, what drew him to sculpture, and the parallels of being an athlete and an artist.
To carry on the spirit of thankfulness and giving after the holiday, please consider donating to the Chicago Artists Coalition (CAC)! Every dollar for every new and increased donation will be matched by the Coleman Foundation.
Here is a selection of production and presentation spaces available for rental around the Chicagoland area.
MAKER Grant recipient Damon Locks talks about winning the MAKER Grant, becoming a fulltime artist and its challenges, and how teaching has benefited him.


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In my office my team and I are going to type texts in the future which will include mathematical signs. Two programs are being proposed: LibreOffice Writer + Math or Microsoft Office + MathType.
I would like to advocate for the first solution, but I need to know what technical advantages and disadvantages each program has. Compatibility with Ubuntu is an evident and important characteristic for LibreOffice, but could you give some other aspects? As a side question, do you advice any other program, even if not WYSIWYG and thus not my preference in this case?


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When Pope Francis left his script Christmas morning to ad-lib an invitation to atheists to join the prayerful in "desiring peace," it may have been the first time an "Urbi et Orbi" Christmas address — an annual message "to the city and the world — mentioned unbelievers.
The improvised remark was a surprise to many in the media, but not to veteran pope watchers who have heard Francis reach out to atheists before. Historian and "Catholic Almanac" editor Matthew Bunson noted several examples:
* Shortly after Francis' inaugural Mass in March, meeting with representatives of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders, he referred to those who belong to no religious tradition as "precious allies" in defending the dignity of man, working for peace and protecting creation.
* In a homily in May, he said Jesus redeemed "all of us, not just Catholics ... even the atheists. Everyone! . We must meet one another doing good." Theologically, this was a meeting on earth, not in heaven. Redemption is not the same as salvation in Catholic teaching. But meeting with anyone willing to work for the common good is a frequent Francis theme.
* In September, the pope invited himself to a conversation with Eugenio Scalfari, an atheist and well-known editor of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Since there was no recording of the interview, the transcript is in question but there's no doubt he felt at home discussing theology with an unbeliever.
"The only thing that would surprise us about Pope Francis is if he didn't surprise us," the Rev. James Martin, culture editor of "America Magazine," said Thursday (Dec. 26).
"He realizes that atheists and agnostics are people of good intentions and good morals with whom we want to work closely," said Martin. "Jesus came into a world filled with believers and unbelievers and the pope lives in that same world."
Copyright: For copyright information, please check with the distributor of this item, Religion News Service LLC.


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(back cover) BARRON'S Books in this series introduce students to the assessment exams given by the New York State Board of Regents in schools throughout the state. These manuals offer comprehensive subject reviews to familiarize students with the actual test and prepare them to do their best on exam day. NEW YORK STATE GRADE 5 ELEMENTARY-LEVEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS TEST Two full-length practice tests with answers explained Additional multiple-choice and short-response practice questions Advice on answering the editing question Explanation of the test and how it is structured so students will know what to expect when they take the actual test General test-taking tipsCard, Hermon R. is the author of 'Barron's New York State Grade 5 Elementary-Level English Language Arts Assessment ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780764137839 and ISBN 0764137832.[read more]
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From Norton Anthology of Literature
The early part of the twentieth century saw massive changes in the everyday life of people in cities. The recent inventions of the automobile, airplane, and telephone shrank distances around the world and sped up the pace of life. Freud's theory of the unconscious and infantile sexuality radically altered the popular understanding of the mind and identity, and the late-nineteenth-century thinkers Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche in different ways undermined traditional notions of truth, certainty, and morality. Theoretical science, meanwhile, was rapidly shifting from two-hundred-year-old Newtonian models to Einstein's theory of relativity and finally to quantum mechanics.
At least partly in response to this acceleration of life and thought, a wave of aggressively experimental movements, sometimes collectively termed "modernist" because of their emphasis on radical innovation, swept through Europe. In Paris, the Spanish expatriate painter Pablo Picasso and the Frenchman Georges Braque developed cubism, a style of painting that abandoned realism and traditional perspective to fragment space and explode form.
In Italy, the spokesperson for futurism, F. T. Marinetti, led an artistic movement that touched on everything from painting to poetry to cooking and encouraged an escape from the past into the rapid, energetic, mechanical world of the automobile, the airplane, and Marinetti's own "aeropoetics." Dadaists such as the Frenchman Marcel Duchamp, author of the ready-made Fountain (1917), a urinal, began a guerilla campaign against established notions of sense and the boundaries of what could be called art. In music, meanwhile, composers such as the Frenchman Claude Debussy and Russian-born Igor Stravinsky were beginning experiments with rhythm and harmony that would soon culminate in the outright atonality of composers such as the Austrians Arnold Schoenberg and Alban Berg.
In England, this outbreak of modernist experiment influenced a loosely interrelated network of groups and individuals, many of them based in London. In anglophone literature, "modernism" more nearly describes an era than a unitary movement. But what connects the modernist writers—aside from a rich web of personal and professional connections—is a shared desire to break with established forms and subjects in art and literature. Influenced by European art movements, many modernist writers rejected realistic representation and traditional formal expectations.
In the novel, they explored the Freudian depths of their characters' psyches through stream of consciousness and interior monologue. In poetry, they mixed slang with elevated language, experimented with free verse, and often studded their works with difficult allusions and disconnected images. Ironically, the success of modernism's initially radical techniques eventually transformed them into the established norms that would be resisted by later generations.
Among the earliest groups to shape English-language modernism were the imagists, a circle of poets led initially by the Englishman T. E. Hulme and the American Ezra Pound, in the early 1910s. Imagist poetic doctrine included the use of plain speech, the preference for free verse over closed forms, and above all the creation of the vivid, hard-edged image.
The first two of these tenets in particular helped to shape later modernism and have had a far-reaching impact on poetic practice in English. Shaped by Asian forms such as the haiku, the imagist poem tended to be brief and ephemeral, presenting a single striking image or metaphor (see "An Imagist Cluster" in NAEL). Pound soon dissociated himself from the movement, and the imagists—including the poets H. D., Richard Aldington, and John Gould Fletcher—continued to publish their annual anthology under the leadership of the American poet Amy Lowell.
Pound, meanwhile, went on to become a literary proponent of vorticism, an English movement in the visual arts led by the painter and writer Wyndham Lewis. The vorticists championed energy and life over what they saw as the turpitude of European society and sought to tap into or create the concentration of energies they dubbed a "vortex."
After having published only one issue of their now notorious journal Blast, the vorticists suddenly found their often violent rhetoric and their ambivalence about English national identity at odds with the real violence of World War I and the wartime climate of patriotism. The second issue of Blast—published behind schedule and dubbed a "war number"—declared the vorticists' loyalty to England in the fight against German fascism on aesthetic grounds. It also announced the death in the trenches of one of the movement's leading lights, the French-born sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. This loss and the general dispersal of the vorticists mark a major turning point for English modernism.
As modernism developed, the flashy, aggressive polemics of Lewis and Pound were replaced by the more reasoned, essayistic criticism of Pound's friend and collaborator T. S. Eliot. Eliot's Waste Land and James Joyce's Ulysses were technically innovative and initially controversial (Ulysses was banned in the United States and Great Britain), but their eventual acceptance as literary landmarks helped to bring modernism into the canon of English literature. In the decades to come, the massive influence of Eliot as a critic would transform the image of modernism into what Eliot himself called classicism, a position deeply rooted in a sense of the literary past and emphasizing the impersonality of the work of art.
In the post-World War II period, modernism became the institutionally approved norm against which later poetic movements, from the "Movement" of Philip Larkin to avant-garde Language Poetry, reacted. Nonetheless, the influence of modernism, both on those artists who have repudiated it and on those who have followed its direction, was pervasive.
Joyce, Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and other modernists provided compositional strategies still central to literature. Writers as diverse as W. H. Auden, Samuel Beckett, Derek Walcott, and Salman Rushdie have all, in one way or another, continued to extend the discoveries of the modernist experiment—adapting modernist techniques to new political climates marked by the Cold War and its aftermath, as well as to the very different histories of formerly colonized nations. Like the early twentieth-century avant-garde in European art and music, meanwhile, literary modernism has continued to shape a sense of art as a form of cultural revolution that must break with established history, constantly pushing out the boundaries of artistic practice.


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Welcome to Balboa Island, CA
This is the Balboa Island Improvement Association's guide to Balboa Island. This guide offers listings of accommodations, activities, activities, maps, and travel information. Hopefully, this guide shall assist our visitors in enjoying the best of what Balboa Island has to offer. Stop by and stay a while, and see why many refer to this beautiful island as "The Host of the Coast".


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Macquarie Equipment Trading on behalf of Micron Technology, Inc. (Boise)
Date of Manufacture:
Currently Configured for: To be determined
Current Equipment Status: Available
Location of Equipment: Boise, United States
Available date: Currently Available
Tool Status: Pump has been powered down, deinstalled, and moved to the warehouse.
Configuration. Audit to verify
Pump has not been refurbished and is not skidded or crated.
Technology Specification :
Peak speed : 3000 l/min
Ultimate vacuum : <7 x 10-5 torr
Typical nitrogen consumption : 0 SLM
Inlet/outlet connection : ISO63/NW25
Noise : 56 dB
Cooling water consumption : 120 l/h
Weight : 45 kg
Power to Ultimate : 1.4 kW
The information referenced on this page is accurate to the best of our knowledge. We do not warrant the completeness or accuracy of the information contained herein. Interested parties are encouraged to request inspection to verify equipment condition, configuration, and completeness. Any offer to purchase equipment shall be subject to our standard terms and conditions of sale.
Get in touch
Ask about our equipment solutions, ranging from Macquarie equipment inventory sales, sourcing programs, surplus disposition options, and direct equipment purchases.


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It's always a privilege when one client recommends another or when a client is inspired by a website that IAMTEEJAY has created. With new client and author, Alan Louis Kishbaugh, both those things happened. Alan is
the husband of long-time client Stella Resnick and was looking to announce his new book on an author website much like the one I had already built for author Carole Armour-Greenbuam and her debut book, The Forever Deal.
Read On
Read On


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I read a post by Amore and Aggie about their greatest fear as mothers, and their responses are truly heartwarming, even made me cry (and gave me the goosebumps!). Their kids are still young and still at that delicate stage of building the foundation of their personalities. Reading about their fears means they know their responsibilities as parents. With their current mindset (and learnings from the past), I'm sure their kids will grow up to be the best they could be. I hope these kids, in the future, will still see that "mothers know best" and will never have a problem that will break their mothers' hearts (i.e. rebellious attitudes, being less proud of their beliefs, and drug rehabilitation,among others). Kudos to you, ladies!
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Posted by Kaje at 17:26
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Dear Hungry Girl,
My friend in Los Angeles talks incessantly about some zero-calorie cappuccino foam she buys at Whole Foods. I can't seem to find it anywhere. Does such a thing exist, does it really contain NO CALORIES, and more importantly, where can I find it?
Freaking Out Over Foam
Dear Freaking Out,
The product you are referring to does exist, and it's called Coffeehouse Classics FOAM!. I am completely and totally OBSESSED with it. The stuff comes in aerosol cans and can be found in the fridge section of select stores (where you'd find the whipped cream). It even looks and tastes a lot like whipped cream. Thing is, it is completely fat-free and VERY low in calories. It's actually not calorie-free, but due to FDA regulations about serving sizes, etc., the serving size listed on the can is a bit unrealistic and therefore the nutritional info is off (there's a full explanation on their website). An average one-ounce serving (which is way bigger than a whipped cream serving!) has about 20 calories. How it works is, you squirt the stuff on your coffee (or hot cocoa), nuke it for about 20-30 seconds, and you've got yourself a foam-tastic Starbucks-quality beverage created right in your kitchen. I love this stuff so much I've even used it in place of whipped cream! There is, however, a catch. This foam is CRAZY-HARD to find (click to see where it's sold). Ugh! I am gonna do my part to help get this stuff on shelves - and you can, too. Simply click here to print out a form you can bring to your local market. Give it to the manager and BEG him or her to start carrying this product. It is SO worth it! I'm completely hooked on it, and I want the rest of the world to try it as well. Long live the foam!!!
I recently cut red meat out of my diet for health reasons, but I LOVE the taste of real meat! Do you have any suggestions for the most meaty-tasting non-meat products on the market? Thanks!
Meat-Lover in Michigan
Dear Meat-Lover,
As a non-vegetarian meat-lover, I am happy to say I have found a bunch of products that are completely meat-free, yet "meaty" tasting enough to satisfy a craving for the real thing. The number one most meaty veggie product out right now would have to be Gardenburger's Riblets. They ROCK! Saucy, sweet and satisfying, they're practically as good as ribs you'd find in Memphis! As for meaty-tasting burgers, I'd say your best bet is Boca's Original vegan patties. They're awesome and have just 70 calories (the cheesy and flame-grilled flavors taste great, too, but they are a bit higher in calories -- just a heads up). Boca also makes great meatless chili and lasagna, and fantastic ground "burger." These ground crumbles are perfect to use in recipes -- you can make delicious meat-free sloppy joes, sauces, and more. Enjoy!
Today, August 30th, is National Toasted Marshmallow Day. Grab a bag of Kraft's portion-controlled Jet-Puffed Mini Marshmallows. Each mini-mallow has about two calories...Weeeee!
For a printable text-only version of this email, click here.


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Former Real Madrid director Jorge Valdano has voiced his admiration for Pep Guardiola, and has hailed the successful coach's innovative approach at Barcelona.
The 41-year-old guided the Blaugrana to a number of trophies during his four-year spell in charge at Camp Nou, and the Argentine has nothing but praise for his footballing philosophy.
"Guardiola did a fantastic job. He is the Steve Jobs of football: experimental, brave, a lover of beauty, and innovative. He is an important point of reference in the footballing world, and rightly so," he told Eurosport.
"Barca have turned their football into a culture and everything that the youngsters learn at La Masia is then applied at the Camp Nou."
Valdano then went on to discuss Real Madrid's youth policy, and stressed that academy players are no longer as important as they used to be at the Santiago Bernabeu.
"In Real Madrid's history, the youth system has been essential, but times have changed. There seems to be some truth in the idea that for the youth system to play an important part, it's better to be poor than rich."
Valdano left Real Madrid in May 2011 after a conflict with Jose Mourinho.


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Tag Archives: carol 360
EVENTS: New Year Meeting 2011 Part 04: Kei Jidosha
If a flux capacitor equipped kei car from 1960 traveled to the present, it'd be totally jealous of the "massive" 660cc displacement its modern counterparts enjoy. Back then, maximum allowable engine size was a scant 360cc. But as the Mazda … Continue reading


text: SCOPES Hi guys, I have been using scopes for forty years, and have had enough experience with them that I decided to post a few lines that may be of help to the new hunter. My friends consider me a little extreme concerning optics and scopes in particular, since my hunting rifles usually have as many as three scopes. That is right! And the reason for that is my fear of Murphy spoiling my hunt. You know what I mean, Murphy's Law, "if something can go wrong it will?" Also my motto concerning equipment is that two is one and one is none, so based on that premise my rifles have a spare pre-sighted scope and rings carried in the backpack. Also, another scope of the total opposite magnification is also carried in the backpack to take care of those situations where the main scope will be too much or too little. For example, in my Remington 742 in 30-06, I have a Bushnell 1 ½ to 6x Lite Site as a main scope when I hunt in Maine over bait for bears (at very short distance and the scope is kept at 1½x). The spare scope is a Bushnell 3x9 Lite Site, and the low light, long range scope is a Leupold Vary X III 3½ to 10x50 mm with an illuminated reticle. This scope was needed when a farmer spotted a big bear at the edge of a big field dining on clover. THE REMINGTON 742 AND THE SCOPES The outfitter switched me from the bait to this new location where the closest shot I will had was over 250 yards. Of course, the change in location makes the switch to the Leupold long range scope imperative, and also a change from the 30-06 180 grain round nose ammo I was using over the bait, to the ammo that I had sight in the long range scope, a spitzer 150 grains reload. Another of my rifles that I plan to use in Alaska (when I get to go in my long-postponed trip for bear) is a RemingtonM-700 in 300 W.M. It wears a 3x9 Leupold on Leupold Quick Detach Weaver style rings, and as a second scope, a Leupold Vary X III 1 ½ to 5 Illuminated reticle. The spare scope is a Leupold Vary X II 1x to 4x with a heavy duplex, what is considered a shotgun scope. That way, if I have to go in the alders thickets looking for a wounded bear, I will have the right magnification in the 1x scope, plenty of field of view and also good eye relief for quick shooting. Through the years I have used several mounts, all quick detachable. The mounts that I trust to take abuse more than any other are the Leupold Quick Detach Weaver style that can be mounted on Leupold Weaver bases, Weaver, or a Picattiny rail. Weaver bases can be found for any rifle ever made, which make the system very versatile. LEUPOLD QUICK DETACH WEAVER STYLE I also use the Leupold Quick Detach system that uses a post in the ring to enter a hole in the base and is locked by turning a lever, a very elegant system and very good at preserving the point of impact without change after repeated removals. In the past, I have used the Redfield JR or SR system complemented with the Pilkington Quick Detach lever. This worked very well for me in several rifles, if I took the precaution of case-harden the top of the front base and dove-tail of the front ring, to avoid excessive wear in repeated removals. THE REDFIELD-PILKINGTON SYSTEM OF QUICK DETACH If you think that having three scopes for each rifle is too much of a bother, just think of the benefits of having a long range scope when a long shot is needed or having one of low magnification when the terrain change into a close woods or jungle. Besides, you never knows when Mr. Murphy can surface, and make you drop your rifle in the rocks or fog your on-board scope. I have had many scopes of many brands, with the exception of the high ticket European specialty scopes with big objectives. In my way of thinking, even though I like good optics, it is unnecessary to spend over a $1,000 for a scope for low light use, when most North American hunting is restricted to a ½ hour before sunrise and a ½ hour after sunset. For me, the scope is the aiming system. It has to be reliable in the adjustment and takes recoil as well as be water and fog proof. The optics need to be good, but not necessarily the best of the best, as the real hunt, evaluation of the trophy, and study of the feasibility of the shot is usually done over a good pair of binoculars. The actual shooting and the looking trough the scope takes less than a minute, often very much less. I am doing very well with the Leupold brand, as I trust their waterproof scopes and positive click adjustments that will not move under heavy recoil, but I have had good experiences with Bausch & Lomb scopes and Bushnell's also, and I don't have anything bad to say of the Tasco, Simmons, or other scopes I own. Protecting the optics from dust and rain is very important. I rely mostly on Buttler Creek scope cover or the Bikini covers, and I sometimes cover them to protect their finish and guards from bumps with a Buttler Creek or Cabela's Scope Cover, which is made of shock absorbing neoprene and will protect the scope during transportation or while in storage. All the best, Watchmaker a.k.a. Black Bear


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Eliza Tuley was born in Indiana on 24 February 1843 to James and Jane Tuley. She and her family are in the 1850 and1860 censuses ion Jackson, Spencer County Indiana. On 21 December 1865 Eliza married Elijah Teague in Gentryville, Spencer County, Indiana.
Eliza and Elijah Teague, spelled numerous ways, had six children. The information about the children is also on the blog posting for Elijah Teague.
Elijah married Eliza Tuley on 21 Dec 1965 in Gentryville, Spencer County, Indiana. Elijah and Eliza had six children.
William Andrew Teague (1866 IN to after 1940) married Mary Ann Cornelison and they had 10 children I believe.
Mary Olive Teague (1871-1906) first married Daniel Reese and later married Jacob Henry Severs. She died after giving birth in 1906. More detailed information about her is on her own blog page.
Emma Teague (1874 IN to after 1880).
Mattie Teague (1879 KS – after 1880)
James Charles Teague (1881 MO-1964 KS) – married Ida Mae Hooten about 1919 and they had two sons.
John Franklin Teague (1889 AR-1939 KS) married Ella Decker about 1918. I don't believe they had any children.
Eliza died after 1925 and is buried in Protection Cemetery, Protection, Comanche County, Kansas.
If you are interested in collaborating on researching this family, please contact me. I am especially interested in the Teague and Tuley lines.


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Arms buy-back events increase, round up more than guns
- Rocket launchers%2C sawed-off shotguns%2C grenade launchers have turned up
- Officials offer up to %24200 in cash and gifts to those who turn in their weapons
- Response to the buy-back events has been %27overwhelming%27
The Connecticut elementary school massacre in December has prompted a new wave of gun buy-back programs in communities around the country.
There is no clearinghouse for data on such programs, but cities from Seattle to Tampa are reporting heightened interest and overwhelming responses in wake of the Newtown Sandy Hook school tragedy.
The buy-backs are yielding thousands of firearms, including military rocket-propelled grenade devices and illegal automatic machine guns.
In Tampa, two rocket launchers and a number of sawed-off shotguns were rounded up at an event last month. Also turned in: a flute fashioned into a one-shot, .22-caliber gun, Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office Capt. Chad Chronister said.
Camden, N.J., Police Chief Scott Thomson said seven machine guns and a powerful "safari" rifle capable of taking down big-game were part of a weapons cache recovered there in December. "On the streets," Thomson said, the game rifle could "cut a human in half."
In January, Seattle police were taken aback with the seizure of an expended rocket-propelled-grenade launcher. Two similar RPG devices were turned over to Los Angeles Police Department officials in a post-Newtown buy-back event.
The unusual weaponry has not been the only distinguishing feature of the programs in which city officials have been offering up to $200 in cash and gifts to rid their communities of unwanted weapons.
In every case, police have been swamped with people wanting to dispose of their guns. Communities have hosted such events in the past, especially in wake of high-profile gun-related violence. But there is broad disagreement, even among law enforcement officials, over whether the strategy is effective in reducing gun crimes.
"There is a great deal of symbolic value, but I have seen no evidence that it substantially reduces violence," said Bernard Melekian, the Justice Department's director of Community Oriented Policing Services. "The problems related to the misuse of firearms are so complex, people want to do something."
But just as Newtown has served as a catalyst for legislative proposals, the incident is jump-starting buy-back programs. "This is an issue on a lot of minds," Seattle Police Det. Mark Jamieson said, referring to the post-Newtown gun debate. "Our concern is with getting these unwanted weapons that are laying around and unsecured off the street, because bad things could happen.''
Chronister said Hillsborough County, which includes the Tampa area, staged its buy-back program Feb. 2, after being "inundated" with calls and e-mails. "These were people who just didn't want their firearms anymore because of the Sandy Hook tragedy, and they wanted a way to dispose of them," Chronister said. "The outcry from the community was too large to ignore.''
The result, the captain said, was "overwhelming.''
A local record 2,668 firearms were turned in, more than double the number anticipated, though much attention was trained on the RPG devices and the "flute gun."
For each weapon, police provided $75 and two tickets each to a Tampa Bay Lightning hockey game and a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game. In one exchange, a single gun owner turned in 35 firearms. Some waited in lines for up to two hours.
Similar scenes have played out across the country.
At the event in Seattle, Jamieson said 719 firearms were turned in during a span of about three hours.
Although conditions of the program -- like those in other cities -- allowed owners to exchange the weapons with no questions asked, Jamieson said the owner of the launch device "really cooperated'' and the military was notified of the recovery.
"This was an overwhelming response,'' Seattle Deputy Chief Nick Metz said after the event.
Thomson, the Camden chief, said the first day of the city's two-day buy-back program coincidentally was held on Dec. 14, the date of the Newtown shooting. Although 375 firearms were netted on the first day, the aftershocks from Newtown drove the second day total to 762.
"The Newtown tragedy had a profound impact on our program,'' Thomson said. By 11 a.m. on Dec. 15, he said, officials had paid out all of the $100,000 that had been budgeted for the event by New Jersey Attorney General Jeff Chiesa, leaving crowds of people at two local churches still seeking to dispose of their firearms.
"The attorney general committed to keep the doors open and to issue IOUs'' to those remaining in line, Thomson said.


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Sony photo and video recovery software to recover deleted photos and videos from Sony digital camera sd memory card.
Sony digital camera photo recovery is the process of salvaging digital photographs (JPG, PNG, ICON, TIF, BMP, RAF, CR2, etc.) deleted or lost from Sony digital camera sd card damaged, failed, corrupted, or inaccessible secondary storage media when it cannot be accessed normally.
Sony offers a wide range of digital cameras. Point-and-shoot models adopt the Cyber-shot name, while digital single-lens reflex models are branded using Alpha.
The first Cyber-shot was introduced in 1996. At the time, digital cameras were a relative novelty. Sony's market share of the digital camera market fell from a high of 20% to 9% by 2005.
Sony entered the market for digital single-lens reflex cameras in 2006 when it acquired the camera business of Konica Minolta. Sony rebranded the company's line of cameras as its Alpha line. Sony is the world's third largest manufacturer of the cameras, behind Canon and Nikon respectively.
There are also a variety of Camcorders which are manufactured by Sony.
In particular, video files are often large, so the video file is deleted or accidental loss of the situation than the picture lost more, when the video is lost, the success rate of video file recovery is naturally lower than the picture.
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For Android version, first requires to perform ROOT on your phone, there are many data recovery software come with ROOT function, but we want to remind you the phone ROOT is a veryserious procedures that also very likelyto fail, which would cause phone unable to use. Therefore, the normal data recovery software comes ROOT function does not make your phone ROOT successfully, and there may be a danger as well. Therefore, we recommend that your phone ROOT, can refer tothe online professionalforums for your type of phone, carefully ROOT; then using Aidfile Android version to restore the data.
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Contact Person: Robins
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Phone: 08602861286848
Country: United States
Website: http://video-recovery.aidfile.com/


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The Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council (Council) and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (Commission) have scheduled a series of scoping hearings to gather public input on the range of issues and information to be considered in the Bluefish Allocation Amendment. Hearings will be held June 20 – July 16 in nine coastal states from Massachusetts to Florida. The last four hearings will be joint hearings of the Council and Commission. All comments, submitted either through public hearings or in writing, will be presented to the Council and Commission. Written comments will be accepted until July 30, 2018.
The amendment will involve a comprehensive review of the Bluefish Fishery Management Plan's (FMP) sector-based allocations, commercial allocations to the states, transfer processes, and goals and objectives. Specifically, the Council and Commission will consider whether modifications to the FMP's goals, objectives, and allocation strategies for bluefish are needed.
Scoping is the first and best opportunity for members of the public to raise concerns related to the scope of issues that will be considered. The public is encouraged to submit comments regarding the range of potential issues to be addressed in the amendment. In addition to comments on allocation and transfer processes, the Council and Commission are interested in comments on the following topics:
Fishery productivity
Ecosystem considerations
Changes in the fishery
Changes in distribution of bait fish
Average fish size
Changes in availability, effort, and marketability
Impacts of changes observed over time
Learn More
The Scoping Document contains background information on bluefish management and on issues that may be addressed in the amendment, as well as a description of the amendment process and timeline. Additional information and updates will be posted at http://www.mafmc.org/actions/bluefish-allocation-amendment.
MAFMC: Matthew Seeley, FMP Coordinator, firstname.lastname@example.com, 302.526.5262
ASMFC: Caitlin Starks, FMP Coordinator, firstname.lastname@example.com, 703.842.0740
Hearing Schedule
Wednesday, June 20, 2018, 6:00 PM - Dare County Commissioners Office, 954 Marshall Collins Drive, Room 168, Manteo, North Carolina 27954; Contact: Chris Batsavage, 252.808.8013
Thursday, June 21, 2018, 6:00 PM - NC Division of Marine Fisheries Central District Office, 5285 Highway 70 West, Morehead City, North Carolina; Contact: Chris Batsavage, 252.808.8013
Thursday, June 21, 2018, 6:00 PM - DNREC Auditorium, 89 Kings Highway, Dover, Delaware 19901; Contact: John Clark, 302.739.9914
Tuesday, June 26, 2018, 6:00 PM - Ocean City Municipal Airport, 12724 Airport Road, Berlin, Maryland 21811; Contact: Eric Durrell, 410.260.8308
Tuesday, June 26, 2018, 6:30 PM - NYSDEC Division of Marine Resources, 205 North Belle Mead Road, Suite 1, East Setauket, New York 11733; Contact: Maureen Davidson, 631.444.0483
Wednesday, June 27, 2018, 6:00 PM - Ocean City Library, 735 Simpson Avenue, Ocean City, New Jersey 08226; Contact: Mike Celestino, 609.748.2040
Thursday, June 28, 2018, 6:00 PM - Ocean County Administration Building, 101 Hooper Avenue, Toms River, New Jersey 08754; Contact: Mike Celestino, 609.748.2040
Thursday, June 28, 2018, 6:00 PM - Brevard County Government Center North, "Brevard Room", 518 South Palm Ave., Titusville, Florida 32780; Contact: Jim Estes, 850.617.9622
Tuesday, July 10, 2018, 7:00 PM - CT DEEP Boating Education Center, 333 Ferry Road, Old Lyme, Connecticut 06371; Contact: Peter Aarrestad, 860.424.4171
Wednesday, July 11, 2018, 6:00 PM - Plymouth Public Library, Otto Fehlow Room, 132 South Street, Plymouth, Massachusetts; Contact: Dan McKiernan, 617.626.1536
Thursday, July 12, 2018, 6:00 PM - URI Narragansett Bay Campus, Corless Auditorium, South Ferry Road, Narragansett, Rhode Island; Contact: Julia Livermore, 401.423.1937
Monday, July 16, 2018, 6:00 PM - Internet webinar: Connection information to be available at http://www.mafmc.org or by contacting the Council; Contact: Matthew Seeley, 302.526.5262
Written Comments
Given the joint nature of this management effort and to streamline the public comment process, comments should be directed to Council contact information below. In addition to providing comments at any of the scheduled scoping hearings, you may submit written comments by 11:59 PM, Eastern Standard Time, on July 30, 2018. Written comments may be sent by any of the following methods:
ONLINE: http://www.mafmc.org/comments/bluefish-allocation-amendment
EMAIL: email@example.com
Chris Moore, Ph.D., Executive Director
Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council
North State Street, Suite 201
Dover, DE 19901
Please include "Bluefish Amendment Scoping Comments" in the subject line if using email or on the outside of the envelope if submitting written comments by mail.
All comments, regardless of submission method, will be compiled into a single document for review and consideration by both the Council and Commission. Please do not send separate comments to the Council and Commission.


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Ya'at'eeh (Welcome) - Our purpose is to increase income creation for the local people, since most of the Navajo Artists depend on their art for their livelihood.
Whats New:
Showcasing Diné (Navajo) Art And Crafts, Including Navajo Jewelry, Rugs, Baskets, Paintings, Sculptures And Pictures.
Navajo Symbols
A fundamental quality of any Navajo religious symbol is the plural character of every spiritual power or elemental force. The hero, who killed the evil monsters, had three brothers with separate abilities and life histories;
Our Navajo People Facebook Page with more Navajo photos and news.
We want to help promote opportunities to Native American artists, craftspeople, and cultural organizations and to promote contemporary Indian arts and crafts.
The Navajo People
The Navajos call themselves "Diné" - "The People." They have been living here for more than four hundred years. When the Spaniards explored this area in the 1600s they used the name "Apache de Navajo," meaning "Apache of the Cultivated Fields."
Today approximately 165,000 people live in Navajo country. The Navajo Nation is governed by an elected tribal council headed by a tribal chairman. The council is made up of representatives of various election districts.
Navajo country is also divided into chapters. Community meetings and activities take place in the many chapter houses you will see in more populated areas. Navajos have traditionally been a democratic society and never had hereditary chiefs as did some other tribes.
Window Rock, Arizona is the capitol of the nation. Many visitors enjoy sketching or photographing the people and the land. Years ago this would have been considered offensive.
Today such activity is common, but permission should be asked before photographing or drawing people or personal property. A fee is often expected.
Navajo Art
The Navajo people have been recognized as extraordinary artists. The Navajo women weave beautiful blankets expressing warmth, earth colors, and unique designs. These designs often depicted earth-like patterns, figures of Navajo spiritual significance
Shonto Trading Post - History with photos
Pictures of Navajo Indians
New Navajo Photo Gallery featuring 370+ photos of Navajo Women, Men, Children, Hogans, Rugs, Pottery, Clothing, sacred mountains, and many other items.


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INVESTIGATING STATISTICAL MODELING APPROACHES FOR RESERVOIR CHARACTERIZATION IN WATERFLOODS FROM RATES FLUCTUATIONS by Kun-Han Lee A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING) December 2010 Copyright 2010 Kun-Han Lee
Object Description
|Investigating statistical modeling approaches for reservoir characterization in waterfloods from rates fluctuations
|Lee, Kun-Han
|Author email
|email@example.com; email@example.com
|Doctor of Philosophy
|Document type
|Degree program
|Electrical Engineering
|Viterbi School of Engineering
|Date defended/completed
|Date submitted
|Restricted until
|Date published
|Advisor (committee chair)
|Ortega, Antonio
|Advisor (committee member)
Mendel, Jerry
Ershaghi, Iraj
|Reservoir characterization is important for reservoir management and performance optimization. For waterflood optimization, traditionally several techniques have been suggested, most of which are either too time-consuming or the data needed are often unavailable. There is a new research trend to overcome these limitations by applying advanced statistical techniques on only injection and production data, which are often readily available for any waterflood operations.; In this work, we follow this trend to formulate the reservoir characterization and forecasting problems in waterflood projects using a system identification framework: the injection rates are seen as inputs; the production rates are seen as the outputs; and the reservoir is considered as a dynamic system. By addressing the properties of general linear dynamic systems, we discuss the limitations of previous models and build three new predictive models to characterize some reservoir behavior, such as producer-to-producer interactions, which was not considered in previous literature. Then we discuss a general parameter estimation approach under the prediction-error framework.; For model evaluation, we propose two techniques: one is based on evaluating their prediction ability on a fresh data set, while the other is based on comparing the interpretations they provide about certain reservoir characteristics with the ground truth. All proposed models are verified by these two approaches. To perform a comparative analysis, we provide a practical metric to compare the prediction performance of different proposed models under various scenarios. From the results, we make several observations and suggestions for reservoir engineers to use the models.; To clarify the relationship between different models, we develop a general linear modeling framework and demonstrate that all proposed models can be considered as special cases within this framework. Moreover, the transfer function of the general linear model can be interpreted to provide insight on reservoir characteristics. Also, the relationship between different models can easily be built from this work.; We propose a multivariate autoregressive model to characterize situations in which a producer is shutting-in or a new producer is being brought online. As a totally new application, we introduce a novel "constrained producer" approach which that only requires minimal changes in production rates (e.g., limiting them to some level below their normal production capacity) to predict the performance after a producer is shut-in. This allows us to handle various "what if" scenarios in waterflood management.; Finally, to achieve a better model estimation, the patterns of injection rates play an important role. We addressed the problem of designing a set of injection rates to achieve a better estimation of target parameters in the reservoir. Two different approaches, deterministic and stochastic approaches, are discussed. For the deterministic approach, we propose a new procedure using a set of inverse-repeat signals to design a set of signals with zero cross-correlation property. For stochastic approach, we applied a common approach in system identification and evaluate all design procedures on some predictive model.
|statistical modeling; preditive model; waterflood; interwell connectivity
|Part of collection
|University of Southern California dissertations and theses
|Publisher (of the original version)
|University of Southern California
|Place of publication (of the original version)
|Los Angeles, California
|Publisher (of the digital version)
|University of Southern California. Libraries
|Electronically uploaded by the author
|Legacy record ID
|Contributing entity
|University of Southern California
|Lee, Kun-Han
|Repository name
|Libraries, University of Southern California
|Repository address
|Los Angeles, California
|Repository email
|Archival file
|Page 1
|Contributing entity
|University of Southern California
|Repository email
|Full text
|INVESTIGATING STATISTICAL MODELING APPROACHES FOR RESERVOIR CHARACTERIZATION IN WATERFLOODS FROM RATES FLUCTUATIONS by Kun-Han Lee A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING) December 2010 Copyright 2010 Kun-Han Lee


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Lawmakers' request that the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Labor collaborate on their fiduciary rulemakings is Congress' way of telling the DOL "to step aside" and let the SEC issue its rule first, as the broker-dealer and insurance industries believe the securities regulator would issue a rule more to their liking, Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America, said Tuesday.
"It's absurd to suggest that DOL should step aside to wait and see" if the SEC moves forward with its fiduciary rulemaking, said Roper at a CFA event held in Washington called The Threat to Retirement Security: When Salespeople Call Themselves 'Advisers.'
"I'm troubled by suggestions that the DOL needs to wait longer," agreed Shaun O'Brien, assistant director of public policy for the AFL-CIO, as update of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act is "long overdue." ERISA, he said, was created in 1974 and "falls far short of the authority needed to protect investors" in today's environment.
Lisa Donner, executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, added that Congress' repeated requests for collaboration between the two regulators on their rules "feels like it's a tactic, and is not grounded in either regulatory or statutory sense."
Indeed, during the event, presented by the AARP, CFA and Americans for Financial Reform, Roper cited the "challenge" in "keeping the two [agencies' fiduciary] efforts separate." Why the two rules are talked about in tandem, she said, is that both agencies "are, in their own way, attempting to close regulatory loopholes" when it comes to investment advice. Yet, the rules need to stay separate, she said, as each agency "has a distinct role to play" and "each also has distinct areas of jurisdiction." While there is "some overlap" in the agencies' jurisdictions, the two "implement different laws and they were written differently intentionally."
Labor Secretary Thomas Perez has stated that a redraft of DOL's fiduciary rulemaking will be coming in the months ahead, with Phyllis Borzi, assistant director of DOL's Employee Benefits Security Administration stating the redraft could come before August or after.
SEC Chairwoman May Jo White has said the agency will make a "threshold decision" this year on whether to impose a uniform fiduciary duty, telling ThinkAdvisor in a recent interview that she's "actively in discussions with the staff" on "potential options" available to the agency that could be used in drafting a fiduciary rule.
Roper said at the event that an SEC rulemaking that fails to require "everyone giving investment advice" to be held to a fiduciary standard would be unacceptable. She added, however, that one improvement the SEC could make to ensure proper advice is given to retail investors is to develop a pre-engagement disclosure document, which Section 913 of the Dodd-Frank Act required the agency to do.
Check out Barbara Roper, Investor Watchdog: The 2014 IA 25 Profile on ThinkAdvisor.