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Bryan Clauson, originally of Carmichael, California, and now living in Noblesville, Indiana, today was named the 2012 "Driver of the Year" by the North American Non-Winged Sprint Car Poll voting panel of media members, promoters, sanctioning officials and manufacturers for his first time ever. The United States Auto Club (USAC) sprint car champion and Indianapolis 500 competitor earned twelve (12) of the sixteen (16) first-place ballots cast in the year-end poll.
Those drivers ranked second through fifth, respectively, are Dave Darland of Indiana, USAC-California Racing Association (CRA) champion Mike Spencer of California, Midwest Sprint Car Series (MSCS) and King of Indiana Sprint Series (KISS) champion Jon Stanbrough of Indiana, and Tracy Hines of Indiana. Rounding out the 'top ten' drivers are Chase Stockon, Damion Gardner, three-time "Driver of the Year" Levi Jones, Nic Faas and Ryan Bernal, respectively. Mike Spencer captured three (3) first-place votes, while a single nod went to three-time "Driver of the Year" Jon Stanbrough. Bryan Clauson's sprint car owners, Corey Tucker, Tim Clauson, Mike Curb and Cary Agajanian, will receive the 2012 non-winged sprint car "Team of the Year" award for their first time.
Chase Stockon of Indiana will receive the "Wild Card Award" for his exciting non-winged sprint car performances in 2012.
Nick Drake of North Carolina will receive the 2012 North American Non-Winged Sprint Car Poll "Rookie of the Year" award from the voting panel. Joe Devin of DRC Chassis will receive the "Builder/Manufacturer of the Year" honors for the fifth time.
The North American Non-Winged Sprint Car Poll is an annual awards program of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum Foundation, Inc., of Knoxville, Iowa. All awards will be distributed in the spring of 2013 at tracks throughout North America.


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Is it possible to warm-up too much?
It was so funny when I ran ultra-marathons. They'd announce 5 minutes to start time and most people are still sitting in chairs or just gabbing with each other. These are usually trail races that extend past the normal 26.2 mile marathon. They last from 5 to 24 hours and beyond. The goal is to expend the least amount of energy possible for the long haul. So warming up is really a waste of energy.
During this time, I signed up for a 5K or two. It was hillarious because you'd see people running and sprinting all over the place. I mean, its a 5K right? I really think they ran a 5K before they even toed the starting line.
So is it possible to warm-up too much? I think it depends on what you are doing. For a very low-intensity exercise of extended time, your workout is basically your warm-up. Say you are on a rowing or elliptical machine. They are low impact so you can start slow and work into a sweat. There isn't much worry at all about getting hurt. Well, unless you are a very out of shape person who has lived a very sedentary life. But that excludes most of us who are working out.
Now, picture a Top Fuel Eliminator dragster that is doing a quarter mile in under 5 seconds. It pays to have the engine up to full temperature. They also do an intense burnout to heat the tires before they go. This also tells you that your engine is ready. So for an Olympian doing a 100 meter running sprint, yeah they are going to do a serious warmup of movements and stretching. The wheels can come off so easily with that intensity. The same for a heavy CrossFit workout that includes heavy deadlifts. Or maybe a Strongman competition where intensity is through the roof. These are the times when you warm-up in a very precise way.
Just about the time I was getting ready for my CrossFit Trainer certification, I was watching a lot of videos and reading as much as I could. One video was a road tour with Spencer Hendel and James Hobart. They would visit CrossFit boxes and join in on a workout wherever they went. They were so funny because they called their most intense efforts as going HAM (Hard as a mother *censored*). They always seemed a bit tired since they were on the road a lot. So they often skipped a dedicated warm-up. They called it going JAGUAR. I love that term. They just jumped in and got down to business.
I used to go to a CrossFit box in town. The hour flow always went the same way. You do a warm-up, often a run, row, or calisthenics. This led to mobility that related directly to the Workout of the Day (WOD). And then a strength segment that was also related. At the end, you'd do the WOD. You'd be totally smoked and then go about your day.
The problem I had with this idea is often you were doing a benchmark workout where you wanted the best time you could get. Say you were doing Diane with heavy deadlifts and handstand pushups. But you already did deadlifts and handstand holds in the strength portion. Yeah, it warmed you up, but maybe it took a lot out of you too. Then you can't go 100% in the WOD. If I were the coach, I would program a specific warmup to the WOD, and then go right to the WOD. Then you guarantee success for your athletes. It would be perfect to do a burnout session after with an EMOM or strength with deadlifts or presses overhead.
TBH, I go JAGUAR in most of my workouts. I don't do any warmup at all. I might do a rep or two or something that relates. But otherwise I jump right in. A WOD is an amazing warmup for a strength portion. I often blow my wad so badly with strength, I wouldn't have energy for a WOD at the end. Another way around a warm-up is to have a buy-in and buy-out. So as part of your WOD, you tack on a 1K row or 800m run or something before and after the AMRAP or couplet that you have prescribed. Then you have the best of all worlds. Sometimes, I even add the strength into the WOD. So if you do a Deadlift workout, it could look like this.
500m row buy-in
WOD 5 rounds for time:
deadlift 285 pounds x5 reps
20 burpees
20 situps
rest 1 min*
500m row buy-out
Then you have everything covered. And the little rest keeps your back safe during a heavy WOD.
So to answer the question, it is possible to warm-up too much. A majority of us doing fitness don't need much of a warm-up. Maybe for some of the Top Fuel people out there, yeah, its smart to warm-up. But don't overdo it to the point where you end up with poor performance.

subset: commoncrawl


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The College Graduate and Public Life
"It is proper to demand more from the man with exceptional advantages than from the man without them."
THERE are always, in our national life, certain tendencies that give us ground for alarm, and certain others that give us ground for hope. Among the latter we must put the fact that there has undoubtedly been a growing feeling among educated men that they are in honor bound to do their full share of the work of American public life.
We have in this country an equality of rights. It is the plain duty of every man to see that his rights are respected. That weak good nature which acquiesces in wrong-doing, whether from laziness, timidity, or indifference, is a very unwholesome quality. It should be second nature with every man to insist that he be given full justice. But if there is an equality of rights, there is an inequality of duties. It is proper to demand more from the man with exceptional advantages than from the man without them. A heavy moral obligation rests upon the man of means and upon the man of education to do their full duty by their country. On no class does this obligation rest more heavily than upon the men with a collegiate education, the men who are graduates of our universities. Their education gives them no right to feel the least superiority over any of their fellow citizens; but it certainly ought to make them feel that they should stand foremost in the honorable effort to serve the whole public by doing their duty as Americans in the body politic. This obligation very possibly rests even more heavily upon the men of means; but of this it is not necessary now to speak. The men of mere wealth never can have and never should have the capacity for doing good work that is possessed by the men of exceptional mental training; but that they may become both a laughing stock and a menace to the community is made unpleasantly apparent by that portion of the New York business and social world which is most in evidence in the newspapers.
To the great body of men who have had exceptional advantages in the way of educational facilities we have a right, then, to look for good service to the state. The service may be rendered in many different ways. In a reasonable number of cases, the man may himself rise to high political position. That men actually do so rise is shown by the number of graduates of Harvard, Yale, and our other universities who are now taking a prominent part in public life. These cases must necessarily, however, form but a small part of the whole. The enormous majority of our educated men have to make their own living, and are obliged to take up careers in which they must work heart and soul to succeed. Nevertheless, the man of business and the man of science, the doctor of divinity and the doctor of law, the architect, the engineer, and the writer, all alike owe a positive duty to the community, the neglect of which they cannot excuse on any plea of their private affairs. They are bound to follow understandingly the course of public events; they are bound to try to estimate and form judgment upon public men; and they are bound to act intelligently and effectively in support of the principles which they deem to be right and for the best interests of the country.
The most important thing for this class of educated men to realize is that they do not really form a class at all. I have used the word in default of another, but I have merely used it roughly to group together people who have had unusual opportunities of a certain kind. A large number of the people to whom these opportunities are offered fail to take advantage of them, and a very much larger number of those to whom they have not been offered succeed none the less in making them for themselves. An educated man must not go into politics as such; he must go in simply as an American; and when he is once in, he will speedily realize that he must work very hard indeed, or he will be upset by some other American, with no education at all, but with much natural capacity. His education ought to make him feel particularly ashamed of himself if he acts meanly or dishonorably, or in any way falls short of the ideal of good citizenship, and it ought to make him feel that he must show that he has profited by it; but it should certainly give him no feeling of superiority until by actual work he has shown that superiority. In other words, the educated man must realize that he is living in a democracy and under democratic conditions, and that he is entitled to no more respect and consideration than he can win by actual performance.
This must be steadily kept in mind not only by educated men themselves, but particularly by the men who give the tone to our great educational institutions. These educational institutions, if they are to do their best work, must strain every effort to keep their life in touch with the life of the nation at the present day. This is necessary for the country, but it is very much more necessary for the educated men themselves. It is a misfortune for any land if its people of cultivation take little part in shaping its destiny; but the misfortune is far greater for the people of cultivation. The country has a right to demand the honest and efficient service of every man in it, but especially of every man who has had the advantage of rigid mental and moral training; the country is so much the poorer when any class of honest men fail to do their duty by it, but the loss to the class itself is immeasurable. If our educated men as a whole become incapable of playing their full part in our life, if they cease doing their share of the rough, hard work which must be done, and grow to take a position of mere dilettanteism in our public affairs, they will speedily sink in relation to their fellows who really do the work of governing, until they stand toward them as a cultivated, ineffective man with a taste for bricabrac stands toward a great artist. When once a body of citizens becomes thoroughly out of touch and out of temper with the national life, its usefulness is gone, and its power of leaving its mark on the times is gone also.
The first great lesson which the college graduate should learn is the lesson of work rather than of criticism. Criticism is necessary and useful; it is often indispensable; but it can never take the place of action, or be even a poor substitute for it. The function of the mere critic is of very subordinate usefulness. It is the doer of deeds who actually counts in the battle for life, and not the man who looks on and says how the fight ought to be fought, without himself sharing the stress and the danger.
There is, however, a need for proper critical work. Wrongs should be strenuously and fearlessly denounced ; evil principles and evil men should be condenmed. The politician who cheats or swindles, or the newspaper man who lies in any form, should be made to feel that he is an object of scorn for all honest men. We need fearless criticism ; but we need that it should also be intelligent. At present, the man who is most apt to regard himself as an intelligent critic of our political affairs is often the man who knows nothing whatever about them. Criticism which is ignorant or prejudiced is a source of great harm to the nation; and where ignorant or prejudiced critics are themselves educated men, their attitude does real harm also to the class to which they belong.
The tone of a portion of the press of the country toward public men, and especially toward political opponents, is degrading, all forms of coarse and noisy slander being apparently considered legitimate weapons to employ against men of the opposite party or faction. Unfortunately, not a few of the journals that pride themselves upon being independent in politics, and the organs of cultivated men, betray the same characteristics in a less coarse but quite as noxious form. All these journals do great harm by accustoming good citizens to see their public men, good and bad, assailed indiscriminately as scoundrels. The effect is twofold: the citizen learning, on the one hand, to disbelieve any statement he sees in any newspaper, so that the attacks on evil lose their edge; and on the other, gradually acquiring a deep-rooted belief that all public men are more or less bad. In consequence, his political instinct becomes hopelessly blurred, and he grows unable to tell the good representative from the bad. The worst offense that can be committed against the republic is the offense of the public man who betrays his trust; but second only to it comes the offense of the man who tries to persuade others that an honest and efficient public man is dishonest or unworthy. This is a wrong that can be committed in a great many different ways. Downright foul abuse may be, after all, less dangerous than incessant misstatements, sneers, and those half-truths that are the meanest lies.
For educated men of weak fibre, there lies a real danger in that species of literary work which appeals to their cultivated senses because of its scholarly and pleasant tone, but which enjoins as the proper attitude to assume in public life one of mere criticism and negation; which teaches the adoption toward public men and public affairs of that sneering tone which so surely denotes a mean and small mind. If a man does not have belief and enthusiasm, the chances are small indeed that he will ever do a man's work in the world; and the paper or the college which, by its general course, tends to eradicate this power of belief and enthusiasm, this desire for work, has rendered to the young men under its influence the worst service it could possibly render. Good can often be done by criticising sharply and severely the wrong; but excessive indulgence in criticism is never anything but bad, and no amount of criticism can in any way take the place of active and zealous warfare for the right.
Again, there is a certain tendency in college life, a tendency encouraged by some of the very papers referred to, to make educated men shrink from contact with the rough people who do the world's work, and associate only with one another and with those who think as they do. This is a most dangerous tendency. It is very agreeable to deceive one's self into the belief that one is performing the whole duty of man by sitting at home in ease, doing nothing wrong, and confining one's participation in politics to conversations and meetings with men who have had the same training and look at things in the same way. It is always a temptation to do this, because those who do nothing else often speak as if in some way they deserved credit for their attitude, and as if they stood above their brethren who plough the rough fields. Moreover, many people whose political work is done more or less after this fashion are very noble and very sincere in their aims and aspirations, and are striving for what is best and most decent in public life.
Nevertheless, this is a snare round which it behooves every young man to walk carefully. Let him beware of associating only with the people of his own caste and of his own little ways of political thought. Let him learn that he must deal with the mass of men; that he must go out and stand shoulder to shoulder with his friends of every rank, and face to face with his foes of every rank, and must bear himself well in the burly-burly. He must not be frightened by the many unpleasant features of the contest, and he must not expect to have it all his own way, or to accomplish too much. He will meet with checks and will make many mistakes; but if he perseveres, he will achieve a measure of success and will do a measure of good such as is never possible to the refined, cultivated, intellectual men who shrink aside from the actual fray.
Yet again, college men must learn to be as practical in politics as they would be in business or in law. It is surely unnecessary to say that by "practical" I do not mean anything that savors in the least of dishonesty. On the contrary, a college man is peculiarly bound to keep a high ideal and to be true to it; but he must work in practical ways 'to try to realize this ideal, and must not refuse to do anything because he cannot get everything. One especially necessary thing is to know the facts by actual experience, and not to take refuge in mere theorizing. There are always a number of excellent and well-meaning men whom we grow to regard with amused impatience hecause they waste all their energies on some visionary scheme, which even if it were not visionary would be useless. When they come to deal with political questions, these men are apt to err from sheer lack of familiarity with the workings of our government. No man ever really learned from books how to manage a governmental system. Books are admirable adjuncts, and the statesman who has carefully studied them is far more apt to do good work than if he had not; but if he has never done anything but study books he will not be a statesman at all. Thus, every young politician should of course read the Federalist. It is the greatest book of the kind that has ever been written. Hamilton, Madison, and Jay would have been poorly equipped for writing it if they had not possessed an extensive acquaintance with literature, and in particular if they had not been careful students of political literature ; but the great cause of the value of their writings lay in the fact that they knew by actual work and association what practical politics meant. They had helped to shape the political thought of the country, and to do its legislative and executive work, and so they were in a condition to speak understandingly about it. For similar reasons, Mr. Bryce's American Commonwealth has a value possessed by no other book of the kind, largely because Mr. Bryce is himself an active member of Parliament, a man of good standing and some leadership in his own party, and a practical politician. In the same way, a sketch of Lincoln by Carl Schurz, a life of Washington by Cabot Lodge, a biography of Pitt by Lord Rosebery, have an added value because of the writers' own work in politics.
It is always a pity to see men fritter away their energies on any pointless scheme; and unfortunately, a good many of our educated people, when they come to deal with politics, do just such frittering. Take, for instance, the queer freak of arguing in favor of establishing what its advocates are pleased to call "responsible government" in our institutions. This agitation was too largely deficient in body to enable it to last, and it has now, I think, died away; but at one time quite a number of our men who spoke of themselves as students of political history were engaged in treating this scheme as something serious. Few men who had ever taken an active part in politics, or who had studied politics in the way that a doctor is expected to study surgery and medicine, so much as gave it a thought; but very intelligent men did, just because they were misdirecting their energies, and were wholly ignorant that they ought to know practically about a problem before they attempted its solution. The English, or "responsible," theory of parliamentary government is one entirely incompatible with our own governmental institutions. It could not be put into operation here save by absolutely sweeping away the United States Constitution. Incidentally, I may say, it would be to the last degree undesirable, if it were practicable. But this is not the point upon which I wish to dwell; the point is that it was wholly impracticable to put it into operation, and that an agitation favoring responsible government was from its nature unintelligent. The people who wrote about it wasted their time.
But of course much of the best work that has been done in the field of political study has been done by men who were not active politicians, though they were careful and painstaking students of the phenomena of politics. The back numbers of our leading magazines afford proof of this. Certain of the governmental essays by such writers as Mr. Lawrence Lowell and Professor A. B. Hart have been genuine and valuable contributions to our political thought. These essays have been studied carefully not only by scholars, but by men engaged in practical politics, because they were written with good judgment and keen insight after careful investigation of the facts, and so deserved respectful attention.
It is a misfortune for any people when the paths of the practical and the theoretical politicians diverge so widely that they have no common standingground. When the Greek thinkers hegan to devote their attention to purely visionary politics of the kind found in Plato's Republic, while the Greek practical politicians simply exploited the quarrelsome little commonwealths in their own interests, then the end of Greek liberty was at hand. No government that cannot command the respectful support of the best thinkers is in an entirely sound condition; but it is well to keep in mind the remark of Frederick the Great, that if he wished to punish a province, he would allow it to be governed by the philosophers. It is a great misfortune for the country when the practical politician and the doctrinaire have no point in common, but the misfortune is, if anything, greatest for the doctrinaire. The ideal to be set before the student of politics and the practical politician alike is the ideal of the Federalist. Each man should realize that he cannot do his best, either in the study of politics or in applied politics, unless he has a working knowledge of both branches. A limited number of people can do good work by the careful study of governmental institutions, but they can do it only if they have themselves a practical knowledge of the workings of these institutions. A very large number of people, on the other hand, may do excellent work in politics without much theoretic knowledge of the subject; but without this knowledge they cannot rise to the highest rank, while in any rank their capacity to do good work will be immensely increased if they have such knowledge.
There are certain other qualities, about which it is hardly necessary to speak. If an educated man is not heartily American in instinct and feeling and taste and sympathy, he will amount to nothing in our public life. Patriotism, love of country, and pride in the flag which symbolizes country may be feelings which the race will at some period outgrow, but at present they are very real and strong, and the man who lacks them is a useless creature, a mere incumbrance to the land.
A man of sound political instincts can no more subscribe to the doctrine of absolute independence of party on the one hand than to that of unquestioning party allegiance on the other. No man can accomplish much unless he works in an organization with others, and this organization, no matter how temporary, is a party for the time being. But that man is a dangerous citizen who so far mistakes means for ends as to become servile in his devotion to his party, and afraid to leave it when the party goes wrong. To deify either independence or party allegiance merely as such is a little absurd. It depends entirely upon the motive, the purpose, the result. For the last two years, the Senator who, beyond all his colleagues in the United States Senate, has shown himself independent of party ties is the very man to whom the leading champions of independence in politics most strenuously object. The truth is, simply, that there are times when it may be the duty of a man to break with his party, and there are other times when it may be his duty to stand by his party, even though, on some points, he thinks that party wrong; he must be prepared to leave it when necessary, and he must not sacrifice his influence by leaving it unless it is necessary. If we had no party allegiance, our politics would become mere windy anarchy, and, under present conditions, our government could hardly continue at all. If we had no independence, we should always be running the risk of the most degraded kind of despotism,—the despotism of the party boss and the party machine.
It is just the same way about compromises. Occasionally one hears some well-meaning person say of another, apparently in praise, that he is "never willing to compromise." It is a mere truism to say that, in politics, there has to be one continual compromise. Of course now and then questions arise upon which a compromise is inadmissible. There could be no compromise with secession, and there was none. There should be no avoidable compromise about any great moral question. But only a very few great reforms or great measures of any kind can be carried through without concession. No student of American history needs to be reminded that the Constitution itself is a bundle of compromises, and was adopted only because of this fact, and that the same thing is true of the Emancipation Proclamation.
In conclusion, then, the man with a university education is in honor bound to take an active part in our political life, and to do his full duty as a citizen by helping his fellow-citizens to the extent of his power in the exercise of the rights of self-government. He is bound to rank action far above criticism, and to understand that the man deserving of credit is the man who actually does the things, even though imperfectly, and not the man who confines himself to talking about how they ought to be done. He is bound to have a high ideal and to strive to realize it, and yet he must make up his mind that he will never be able to get the highest good, and that he must devote himself with all his energy to getting the best that he can. Finally, his work must be disinterested and honest, and it must be given without regard to his own success or failure, and without regard to the effect it has upon his own fortunes; and while he must show the virtues of uprightness and tolerance and gentleness, he must also show the sterner virtues of courage, resolution, and hardihood, and of desire to war with merciless effectiveness against the existence of wrong.


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It's a question I often ask my students: Where are you going?
New riders often don't realize that they have to ride their horses the whole time they're in the saddle. There's no point during the lesson at which they can just sit there. They have to keep a feel of their horse, anticipate the horse's next moves, and always have in their mind where they want to go and what they want the horse to do. (This is a concept that is illustrated nicely in this video by Carson James.)
If they don't, the horse will decide for them.
And that decision will probably not be to the rider's liking.
I'm starting to realize that this is a pretty apt metaphor for life. You can passively let it take you where it wants to go. Or you can decide what you want out of it and use all your tools to get there.
I spent a very long time searching for what I wanted out of life. But the only reason it took me so long was that I knew the whole time what I wanted, and I wasn't pursuing it because I didn't think it was a valid option. For nearly ten years I constantly changed apartments, changed jobs, I tried new exercise regimens, explored new hobbies, and none of it ever satisfied me.
Then, nearly five years ago, I finally found my way back to horses. Since then, I've chronicled my journey from being a 30-year-old starting over and trying to regain the muscles needed to ride well again while taking one lesson a week in insane conditions in the middle of New York City, to leasing a horse in Texas, riding four times a week and learning an entirely new discipline, just starting to show again at the lowest level at the age of 35.
When I started out, I had no idea where this was going. I just knew I wanted to ride again. That my body and my mind and my heart missed it and it was time to do whatever it took to fill that hole in my life. I was just glad to be sitting on the horse; the direction didn't matter.
As I got more involved, I started to realize that it wasn't just filling the hole of a missed hobby. It was actually something that could stop the emptiness left by not having a career that engaged or fulfilled me. It was something that I could throw myself into wholeheartedly and never get bored learning more about. It was something I could aspire to mastering, and which I would feel proud of myself once I did.
I started to dream about working with horses. I learned about training programs for wild mustangs, and that opened up the whole world of understanding how to relate to these animals on their own terms, to studying ethology, to learning about conservation efforts, and ranching, and all the riding disciplines associated with that, and a million other fascinating things that had always been at the heart of me, ever since I was a tiny girl telling my parents that I wanted to be a cowgirl when I grew up.
So many different threads have come together to bring me to this point. Frustrated at my inability to find English jumping lessons in the area, I reached out to a trainer and asked her if she thought someone with my background would benefit from Western lessons. I figured if I couldn't find what I was looking for, maybe I should look at what was right there in front of me. That resulted in the trainer offering to lease Dunnie to me. It brought me the closest working relationship I've ever had with a horse. It also brought me a mentor relationship and friendship with that trainer that I'd been looking for my whole life. It brought me back to teaching riding again, finally for the first time since I was 16 years old getting paid to work with horses.
So here I am. I've got a great horse underneath me (both literally and metaphorically), and it's for me to decide in what direction to travel — and then to use everything I've got in my toolbox to get myself there.
That's what I'm working on now. I'm researching different fields of horse work, I'm reading up on them, and I'm finding out how to get trained and certified. Look for some big changes coming around here, including the launch of a new site in the not-too-distant-future. Urban Equestrian has been a wonderful place to reflect on what I've been learning on my journey back to being a horsewoman, but now it's time for action.


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Disaster time again, for our sisters and brothers in Haiti. Already the vultures circle, using this tragedy as another opportunity to take advantage or worse, to engage in the pornography of suffering black bodies.
Now is not the time for tears, hand-wringing, there are lots of organisations that are quietly doing good work in Haiti that does not line the pockets of multinational aid corporations, or continue to fatten the Port au Prince elite.
The following is a list I've compiled thanks to friends in Haiti and its diaspora. Please do your own research on the organisations listed below. I'll keep updating it as more info emerges.
Donations in Trinidad
A group of citizens are doing a non-organisational collection of items from Monday 10th October. Collection/Drop-off point will be at the Veni Mangé Restaurant 67A Ariapita Ave, Woodbrook.
ITNAC Trinidad based organisation sending volunteers soon to Haiti asking for donations of food/clothing/shoes/women's sanitary wear/insect repellent as well as urgent cash donations in any currency.
Haitian led NGOs
Konbit Mizik a NYC based non-profit using music to educate, empower and uplift Haiti's vulnerable youth.
Haiti Communitiere Donations go directly to help communities gain access to the resources, knowledge and skills they need to rebuild.
Art Creation Foundation for Children (ACFFC) is an arts based non-profit organization created for the personal growth, empowerment, and education of children in need in Jacmel, Haiti.
Sakala provides a safe space in the heart of Haiti's largest underdeveloped area, where youth come together to grow, learn, and play.
Soil Haiti eco sanitation service organisation
Volontariat pour le Développement d'Haïti focusing on young people's development
Lambi Fund working on economic justice and alternative sustainable development.
MADRE LGBTQI friendly organisation doing gender discrimination and violence work.
Sowaseed Sustainable change and support for orphans
Konbit Solèy Leve Participation, Solidarity, Reciprocity
Haitian American Caucus Brooklyn based young professionals organisation
PRODEV Education access in under-served communities.
Ayiti Se NOU Working on various projects around education, health, environment, entrepreneurship and culture/sports.
International NGOs
Roots of Development community led development projects
Partners in Health Teaching Hospital in Mirebalais
Nova Hope for Haiti community medical care
Crowd-funding appeals
Fondation Aquin Solidarite (FAS) is a non-profit organization, founded in 2005, to provide educational, cultural, sports and economic support and mentoring to the city and the people of Aquin, located 117kms southwest of Port-au-Prince.
Hurricane Matthew Relief in Abricots Support for cacao farmers in Abricots organised by dance scholar Dasha Chapman.
Donations in NYC
Flatbush-YMCA at 1401 Flatbush; the Multicultural Bridge Project at 1894 Flatbush Ave.; and the Haitian Family Resource Center at 1783 Flatbush Ave.
Quiescere Resource Center (516-205-9035) is also accepting donations, as is the Fernande Valme Ministries (718-284-1809).
Donations in Florida Click image for details
Western Union is offering toll free transfers to Haiti from United States, Canada , France, Chile, Brazil and the Caribbean at participating outlets, on their website and on mobile Western Union, where available.


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Winter solstice. For one day we have the shortest amount of light, the most darkness. Then, slowly, resolutely, the sun returns.
Mused Winter Solstice 2009 captures the hush as our world prepares for a fresh start. Poetry begins the journey. In Winter Moments we glimpse perfection in a snowy day. Adieu poignantly paints the leaving of a cherished home.
For fiction which reflects reality, Blackberry Winter muffles us with "three strikes" in rural Georgia - "a girl, colored, and ugly". Our real life stories are even more compelling. Epileptic Journey traces a family's struggle with seizures. Asylum peeks behind the bars of a psychiatric ward.
The artwork of Mused illuminates. Path to Nowhere reveals a New York forest, Gloomy Day a Newfoundland harbor, Rutland State Park a quiet Massachusetts lake.
Nancy Dietrich reveals how writing was a life-saving escape from an abusive marriage. As she documented her life stories, "I finally started to gain some distance from each episode. And only then could I start to heal."
Have fun passing this message along to family and friends, because we all love to share gorgeous photos and artwork!
Lisa Shea, Computer Games Editor
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Just a little bit of between story fun .. not to worry suitor #4 is quickly on the scene and for you Bruno fans I have NOT forgotten you .. had a tiny bit of writer's block but all is solved now .. you will get your update after I do a tiny bit of "bridge" work.
In the meantime enjoy the fun with me as my simself LisaBee will attempt survival in this devastated world populated by zombies, mutant raccoons and STRANGE sims all living in tents, bunkers and abandoned buildings. (Challenge link at the end of blog)
Dear Diary,
I was so glad to find this little settlement called Murkland. After the attack on our world I spent much time wandering alone the wilderness .. thinking soon I would die. I have lost track of how long it has been since that fateful day most of our world died. The evil alien warlord Murddock the Magnificent (he calls himself that) and his crew were (are) archenemies with the peaceful inhabitants of Sixam. When he found out about the alliance Oasis Springs had with Sixam he breathed out his hate on our world. Bringing a vile toxin from his home planet to poison our world with it, he thought we would all die but HA we fooled him … here we are! The remnant remains! We will survive (hopefully).
Here is my new homestead … it is not much but I have all I need here and it is all mine! I feel contented and safe here (mostly) ..
Food and fresh water is scarce … so you do what you need to do to stay alive and healthy.
While at first trash fruit, a Murkland staple, was loathsome .. I do admit that it has grown on me.
And if sitting on a bench alone eating salad from the trash bin is not bad enough .. AUGH DON!
… it's enough to turn a girls stomach!
The only place that has water that is safe enough to bathe in is Murkland Hot Springs but access is limited. My days are Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
It is a great place to get together with friends … chit chat while getting clean!
I spend a lot of time looking for things to sell or trade. It is how we get by here in Murkland. Insects and frogs are a delicacy for some (NOT me) Murkland inhabitants so I wander pretty far and wide to find a tasty assortment to sell. I do pretty good.
Fishing is my FAV! Now it is true that the fish is tainted and unfit for human sims but Zombies and Mudders love it. The only fish safe for human consumption is the Bone fish but I have yet to try it because I have not learn how to prepare it and I find enough to eat in the trash bins. I caught this beauty doing a bit of night fishing .. oh he was a fighter.
I am slowly making friends here in Murkland. I find most are warm and welcoming and we are having such fun.
But some are .. uhhh …. mmm .. unusual?
THEN there is HIM .. Vlad I could do without!
I had heard thru the grapevine that there was someone who lives deep in the Granite Falls woods who was an herbalist and knew many secrets .. INCLUDING a potion that was like a bath in a jar. With water so scarce I spent most of my time in a miserable green fog of my own making .. I needed a bath in a jar!
I had to know if this was true .. I would go search out this mystery myself. I hopped on a rickety old bus and headed off on my adventure.
Granite Falls was a sanctuary of sparkling water falls, green grass and tall rich smelling trees. With the exception of the water the toxic assault had not harmed the part of the world. Too small an area to sustain a significant population it was deemed a world preserve. Sims were allowed to visit but were not allowed to stay. THE only exception it is said is the mad hermit who lives deep in the forest. Most believe him to only be legend but not me .. I am determined to find him.
Befriending the Ranger, he told me many tales of the mystery woodsman .. inspiring my quest.
I searched high and low and even crept thru a creepy bramble … it scratched and poked me as I went deeper and deeper into the woods.
The journey was arduous .. oh how I missed the comfort of my snug little tent.
AND although I was sick of tofu dogs I had no intention of sampling those bugs I was catching.
All of a sudden I spotted a hut right there in the midst of a beautiful glen. A man was tending a garden .. when he saw me he looked a bit surprised but smiled and beckoned me come … welcoming me to his home. "You are real," I whispered. He laughed, "Of course I am real child .. what made you think otherwise?"
He taught me much about herbs .. how to identify them. Which were toxic and which safe for tea. BUT best of all he taught me the secret blend for the bath in a jar and showed me what plants to harvest for it.
I was so happy there …
I wished I could stay forever .. but alas tall, pale and creepy found me.
So back to the real world I went …
besides it was Friday and I needed to shower. OH sooo fresh 🙂
By the time I made it home that night I was already in need of another. I sure hope the bath in jar potion works!
< / next The Post-Apocalyptic Murkland Starter Challenge: #2 Murky Love?>>>
Murkland (current) Table of Contents
***************************credits ***********************
TY Brennachan Sims for a FAB challenge. If you are interested is seeing more of what this challenge is about visit http://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/910413/post-apocalyptic-murkland-the-starter-challenge/p1 Misery does love company soooo we would love to have you join us! ALL the builds and townies are Brennachan's and you can find links on her thread.


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(Published May 25, 2014 in the Monterey Herald.)
1. "It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle."
A. Norman Schwarzkopf
B. Betty White
C. Dick Cheney
2. "I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it."
A. David Hasselhoff
B. Eleanor Roosevelt
C. W. C. Fields
3. "One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter."
A. Donald Sterling
B. Gomer Pyle
C. James Earl Jones
4. "The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
A. Forrest Gump
B. Bertrand Russell
C. Stephen Hawking
5. "Turn on, tune in, drop out."
A. "Squeaky" Fromme
B. Timothy Leary
C. Casey Kasem
6. "There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is in the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition."
A. Rod Serling
B. Alfred Hitchcock
C. Neil deGrasse Tyson
7. "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have already chosen the side of the oppressor."
A. Vladimir Putin
B. Desmond Tutu
C. Jeb Bush
8. "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
A. Ralph Nader
B. Ralph Lauren
C. Ralph Waldo Emerson
9. "Cows are my passion. What I have ever sighed for has been to retreat to a Swiss farm, and live entirely surrounded by cows -and china."
A. Charles Dickens
B. Mao Zedong
C. Adam Sandler
10. "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."
A. Abraham Lincoln
B. Nathan Hale
C. Paul Revere
Answers: 1-A, 2-C , 3-C , 4-B , 5-B , 6-A , 7-B , 8-C , 9-A , 10-B
Scoring: 10–QQQQ = Quote-Master
(number correct) 8-9–QQQ = Scholar
6-7–QQ = Literate
4-5–Q = Semi-Literate
0-3–No Q=Quote-Dunce
"Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong." – James Bryce
(Bryce, 1838-1922, was a British historian, politician. and ambassador to the United States.)


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How Evolution Works (And How We Figured It Out)
Season 2 Episode 25 | 12m 9s | Video has closed captioning.
As a scientific concept, evolution was revolutionary when it was first introduced. With the help of all three of our hosts and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History's new Deep Time Hall, we'll try to explain how evolution actually works and how we came to understand it.
Aired: 06/13/19
Problems Playing Video? | Closed Captioning


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Big things come in small packages.
Life is like a box of chocolates … You never know what you're gonna get.
~ Forrest Gump (played by Tom Hanks as the title character)
Celebrate everyday!
Live in the ☼moment☼
In any ♣season♣
Cherish yourself ~ YOU're a treasure! 👑
Life's sweeter with ♥loved ones♥ …
… ♪music♫ …
… & literature …
… + chocolate!
Keep the party going!
And most of all: spread those good vibes!
Sharing = Caring!


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County saving money through grader program
PANAMA CITY — Bay County is saving money exchanging its motor graders every three years instead of running them for their full 10-year life spans, officials say.
The motor graders, which look as if they have a large snowplow positioned beneath the driver's cab, are used to maintain the county's dirt roads.
The County Commission voted Tuesday to approve buying two more Caterpillar 12M2 motor graders, for $113,500, a price that was dramatically reduced because of a $326,000 trade-in allowance for the old graders.
The county purchased the old graders for $197,997 each in November 2008 and got $163,000 back at trade-in, 82 percent of the original purchase price, said Ken Schnell, county public works director.
Under this replacement program, the county only uses the graders while they're under warranty, a three-year period. That way it avoids all repair costs and increases the vehicles resale value, Schnell said.
"The average cost of 10 years is almost over $100,000 in repairs," he said, noting the resale value is very low at 10 years.
The grader comes with a full three-year warranty, though the county still must do preventative maintenance. During that period, the county spends about $35,000 to use the grader, Schnell said.
By not paying for repairs and getting more than 80 percent of the grader's purchase price back, the county is saving at least $10,000 a year per grader, Schnell said.
Using newer equipment also means it stays on the road, doing the job for which it was purchased.
"We're pleased to be able to use the equipment that's in good running condition because it also makes us more efficient," Schnell said.
The county's 230 miles of dirt roads get routine grading either once or twice a month. The roads have been divided into seven grader districts, each with its own grader, Schnell said.
"They operate every day that we're operating, weather permitting," he said.
Hits a snag
But the grader replacement program did hit a snag last summer. It was time for the old graders — the ones just traded in — to be resold. The county had purchased replacements for them, but couldn't find a buyer for them.
It looked into auctioning them off and wrote to construction companies, but couldn't find anyone to pay at least 80 percent of their original purchase price.
In December, the county changed course and contacted grader dealers, asking about trade-in values.
"Usually you typically don't get in trade-in what you can get in an auction," Schnell said.
But county officials told the Caterpillar dealer if it wanted the county's business, it should help get these old graders resold, Schnell said.
"And what they figured they could do was buy our motor graders and put those into their rental program," he said.
Relatively new program
The program is relatively new, and this is only the second time the county has sold a grader. The first time the county got 90 percent of the original purchase price through auctioning off a grader. But that was before graders' price jumped, Schnell said. The original purchase price on that grader was $176,000, he said.
Commissioner Bill Dozier brought the idea for the program before the commission in 2007, and the board approved it. He said the idea came after talking with several county staff members.
"We just keep rolling them over every three years; that way we're not saturated with maintenance costs in the long run," he said.
Dozier said it's a good program and is a creative, out-of-the-box idea to help the county financially.
"It saves the county a lot of money in the long run," he said.
Dozier also noted the reason it was tough to find a buy for the old graders was because the market was depressed. But he's confident of the program's value.
"There's ways such as this program and others where we can save money for the county and make good, solid business decisions and that's what we've been able to do," he said.


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As I've mentioned a time or two in the past, macaroni and cheese is definitely up there on my list of favorite foods. In my mind, it's pretty much the perfect comfort food. While I definitely have a favorite traditional mac and cheese recipe, I also like to experiment with variations. Check out these other macaroni recipes I've posted previously - Spicy Crab Macaroni and Cheese, Baked Mac and Cheese, Stovetop Mac and Cheese, and this chicken version - White Cheddar Chicken Pasta.
Well when I saw this beer cheese soup turned mac and cheese recipe on Pinterest, I couldn't pass it up. I figured it would be perfect for our tailgating party for the upcoming game. Let me tell you, don't wait to make this one. This is some fantastic pasta. The beer combines perfectly with the smoked and sharp cheddar cheeses and whole wheat pasta. I used a Sam Adams Oktoberfest beer but any decent beer should work, I think I would avoid the light beers for this recipe, as you want something with a bit more flavor.
Feel free to adjust the cheeses but I think the blend of 1/3 smoked cheddar, 1/3 sharp white cheddar, and 1/3 mild cheddar, along with a little American cheese gives great flavor. I added the American cheese slices because I like the creaminess that it adds. I just used slices from the deli but you could shred it as well. The recipe that I used baked the mac and cheese but I opted not too for this one since it was so creamy straight from the stovetop. If you want to bake it, I recommend adding a bread crumb topping.
Beer Cheese Macaroni and Cheese
Adapted from HowSweetEats
12 oz uncooked whole wheat elbow or shell pasta
2 T unsalted butter
2 T flour
1 cup milk
1 cup beer
4 oz smoked cheddar cheese, grated
4 oz sharp white cheddar cheese, grated
4 oz mild cheddar cheese, grated
6 slices American cheese
1/4 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp mustard powder
1/4 tsp dried thyme
salt and pepper, to taste
10 basil leaves
Heat a large pot of water to boiling, add a liberal amount of salt when boiling and add pasta. Cook to just al dente, according to package directions. Drain and return to pan or crock pot if you want to keep it hot for a while (you don't want to cook it in the crock pot but it can stay on low for a short while, if you plan to leave it in the crock pot for an extended time, you'll want to cook your pasta just shy of al dente so it doesn't turn mushy.)
Meanwhile, melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add flour and whisk to make a roux. Continue whisking until the roux start to turn golden and bubbles, about two minutes. Add milk and beer, stirring constantly. Cook for about five minutes until the mixture begins to thicken slightly. Reduce heat to low and add cheeses by the handful, stirring to melt and incorporate. The sauce will thicken slightly but will not be as thick as regular mac and cheese at this point. Add paprika, mustard, thyme, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour sauce over pasta and stir to distribute. Chiffonade basil leaves by stacking and rolling tightly, then use a sharp knife to cut thin slices to form ribbons. Stir basil into pasta and serve.


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Set millennia in the future, Yevgeny Zamyatin's 1921 dystopian novel We tells the story of a man whose sense of self shatters when he realizes he can no longer conform to the ideology of his totalitarian government. Zamyatin's novel is a zany, prescient, poetic tale about resisting the forces of tyranny, conformity, and brute, unimaginative groupthink.
We is narrated by D-503. D-503 is an engineer building a spacecraft, the Integral, which will expand the domain of OneState. Although OneState has conquered earth (after the apocalyptic Two Hundred Years War), they seek to expand their empire of conformity to the stars, perhaps replicating their giant city-state on planets yet unknown. In its physical form, OneState is a glass panopticon surrounded by a great Glass Wall that keeps the wild natural world out. In its ideological form, OneState mandates uniformity, mechanization, and mathematical precision. The denizens of OneState conform to this ideology at all times. They wear uniforms — "yunies" — that bear the numbers that serve as their names. Indeed, they are "Numbers," not people. The Numbers wake and sleep at the exact same hour. They march in unison and live and work in glass buildings. They "vote" to elect the same Benefactor each year, who runs unchallenged. They eat foods made from petroleum and produce children in a machine-like process that follows a system of "Maternal and Paternal Norms." Numbers that don't meet these Norms are forbidden from reproducing, but any Number can register for intercourse with another Number on Sex Day. A secret police force, the Bureau of Guardians, monitors the population, but it's ultimately groupthink that keeps the Numbers in line.
One-State's groupthink ideology is neatly summed up in propaganda that D-503 shares late in the novel:
Here's the headline that glowed from page one of the State Gazette:
For henceforth you are perfect! Up until this day your offspring, the machines, were more perfect than you.
Every spark of the dynamo is a spark of purest reason. Every stroke of the piston is an immaculate syllogism. But do you not also contain this same infallible reason? The philosophy of the cranes, the presses, and the pumps is as perfect and clear as a circle drawn with a compass. But is your philosophy any less perfect? The beauty of the mechanism is in the precise and invariable rhythm, like that of the pendulum. …But think of this: The mechanism has no imagination.
Imagination is the ultimate enemy of the machine, and the Benefactor and his Guardians have a plan to finally root it out and exterminate it.
Throughout much of We, D-503 is very much attuned to this ideology. D-503 thinks of OneState as "our glass paradise." What we see as dystopia he sees as utopia, he initially constructs We as a testament to OneState's glory that he will include as part of the cargo of the Integral. However, as the narrative unfolds, D-503 unravels. His sense of self divides as signs of mental illness emerge–first dreams, then an imagination, and then—gasp!—a soul.
D-503's internal conflict stems from discovering his own innate irrationality—namely, a soul which cannot be measured in numbers or weighed in physical facts. This internal conflict drives much of the narrative of We. Zamyatin delivers this conflict in D-503's first-person consciousness, a consciousnesses that contracts and expands, a consciousness that would love to elide its own first-person interiority completely and subsume itself wholly to a third-person we—but he can't. Consider the following passage;
I lie in the bed thinking … and a logical chain, extraordinarily odd, starts unwinding itself.
For every equation, every formula in the superficial world, there is a corresponding curve or solid. For irrational formulas, for my √—1, we know of no corresponding solids, we've never seen them…. But that's just the whole horror—that these solids, invisible, exist. They absolutely inescapably must exist. Because in mathematics their eccentric prickly shadows, the irrational formulas, parade in front of our eyes as if they were on a screen. And mathematics and death never make a mistake. And if we don't see these solids in our surface world, there is for them, there inevitably must be, a whole immense world there, beneath the surface.
I jumped up without waiting for the bell and began to run around my room. My mathematics, up to now the only lasting and immovable island in my entire dislocated life, had also broken loose and floated whirling off. So does this mean that that stupid "soul" is just as real as my yuny, as my boots, even though I can't see them now (they're behind the mirror of the wardrobe door)? And if the boots are not a disease, why is the "soul" a disease?
What initiates D-503's anti-quest for a soul? It is a woman of course. I-330 interrupts D-503's routine life, puncturing his logic with irrational passions, taking him on transgressive trips to the Old House—and eventually, leading him to the greatest transgression of all. You see, there's an underground movement, a secret resistance force—one that not uncoincidentally needs access to the Integral—and this resistance plans to…but I shouldn't spoil more.
Or really, could I even spoil the plot of We? So many novels and films have borrowed heavily from (or at least echoed) its premise that you already know what it's about. The major examples are easy—Huxley's Brave New World (1932), Lang's Metropolis (1927), Orwell's 1984 (1949), Vonnegut's Player Piano (1955), etc. Then there are all their followers—the cheap sci-fi paperbacks of the sixties and seventies, their corresponding films—Logan's Run, Soylent Green–and so on and so on, well into our Now (Running Man, Total Recall, The Matrix, The Hunger Games, etc. forever).
You get the point: We is a generative text. And after reading We, I couldn't immediately think of a clear generative text that generated it. From what materials did Zamyatin craft his tale? The closest predecessor I could initially think of was Jack London's The Iron Heel (1907), or maybe bits of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895), neither of which feel as thoroughly modern as We does. However, cursory research (uh, skimming Wikipedia) turned up Jerome K. Jerome's 1891 short story, "The New Utopia," which does feature some of the tropes we find in We. Set in city of the future, "The New Utopia" features uniformed, nameless, numbered people whose government attempts to destroy the human imagination. Here, the "Destiny of Humanity" has become an egalitarian nightmare.
While it's likely that "The New Utopia" furnished Zamyatin some of the tropes he needed to construct We, Jerome's story simply doesn't have the same epic themes of underground resistance to technological bureaucracy that have became the stock of so much 20th and 21st-century science fiction. (I rewatched Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985) while reading We, and the parallels are remarkable—but the same can be said for any number of sci-fi films of the last sixty or so years).
More significantly, Jerome's "The New Utopia" is beholden to a rhetorical scheme that makes it feel closer to an essay than a finished work of art. The story is essentially a one-sided dialogue—a man falls asleep, wakes up a few thousand years later, and gets the skinny on the utopian nightmare city he's awoken in from an enthusiastic Future Person. Reading "The New Utopia" reminded me of reading London's The Iron Heel, which essentially works in the same way—London's plot often feels like an excuse to stitch together Marxist readings into monologues posing as dialogues.
Zamyatin's book, in contrast, is Something New. We is a work of Modernism, not just a collection of new tropes, but a new configuration of those tropes. Zamyatin's D-503 is a consciousness in crisis, a self that simultaneously dissovles and resolves into something new—a creature with a soul. Consider D-503's recollection of a nightmare:
It's night. Green, orange, blue; a red "royal" instrument; a yellow-orange dress. Then, a bronze Buddha; suddenly it raised its bronze eyelids and juice started to flow, juice out of the Buddha. Then out of the yellow dress, too: juice. Juices ran all over the mirror, and the bed began to ooze juice, and then it came from the children's little beds, and now from me, too—some kind of fatally sweet horror….
The prose here showcases Zamyatin's vivid style. We, crammed with colors, often evokes Expressionist and Futurist paintings. We get here a painterly depiction of D-503's abjection, his sense of a self leaking out in "some kind of fatally sweet horror" — his boundaries overflowing. The dream-synthesis here is at once joyful, terrifying, and utterly bewildering to our poor hero. It is also poetic in his rendering. D-503 laments early in his narrative that he is not a poet so that he cannot properly celebrate OneState in writing for his readers. But later, his friend R-13—a poet himself—tells him that he has "no business being a mathematician. You're a poet…a poet!"
R-13 is correct: D-503 is a poet, a poet who cannot abide all the metaphysics gumming up his mathematical mind. This poetry is rendered wonderfully in the English translation I read by Clarence Brown (1993), and is showcased in the very "titles" of each chapter (or "Record," in the book's terms). Each "Record" begins with phrases culled from the chapter. Here are a few at random:
An Author's Duty
Swollen Ice
The Most Difficult Love
Through Glass
I Died
Familiar "You"
An Absolutely Inane Occurrence
Hairy Me
These are the titles of four random chapters, but I suppose we could string together the whole series and arrive at a Dadaist poem, one that might also serve as an oblique summary of We.
And yet for all its surrealist tinges and techno-dystopian themes, the poem that We most reminded me of was, quite unexpectedly, Walt Whitman's Song of Myself (1855). Whitman's poem sought a new language and a new form to tell the story of a new land, a new people. He wanted to be everyone and no one at the same time, himself a kosmos, form and void, an I, a you, a we. Whitman addressed his poem to both the you of his readership, an immortal future readership beyond him ("Listener up there!") as well as himself, famously declaring: "I loaf and invite my soul."
D-503 presents almost as an anti-Whitman. He directly addresses his "unknown readers" in nearly every chapter, and with a Whitmanesque turn, like this one: "You, my unknown readers, you will be told everything (right now you are just as dear, as close, and as unapproachable…)." His ebullience and optimism are ironic of course—they are honest performances that crack under the increasing reality of his emerging soul. Unlike Walt Whitman, D-503 cannot loaf and invite his soul. He can't sustain the negative capabilities Whitman's poem engenders. His we cannot reconcile with an I, even as it seeks a mediating you in its dear readers.
And yet for all its bitter ironies and for all its hero's often feckless struggle, We is a comedy. The book is a cartoon-poem-satire, its comedy sustained in the careening voice of D-503. It's somewhat well known that George Orwell used We as a template for 1984 (he began that novel less than a year after penning a review of a French translation of We). Orwell's novel though falls into the same essaying that we see in The Iron Heel and "The New Utopia." It's also awfully dour. In contrast, We shuttles along with zany elan, inviting us to laugh at modern absurdity. Indeed, Zamyatin posits laughter as resistance to tyranny, myopia, and brutish closed-mindedness. Late in the novel, D-503 arrives at the following epiphany:
And that was when I learned from my own experience that a laugh can be a terrifying weapon. With a laugh you can kill even murder itself.
I could end by cataloging the various parallels that might be drawn between We and our own dystopian age, but I think that they are too obvious, and, as I've noted, have been repeated (with degrees of difference) throughout the body of dystopian narratives that We has helped generate. What the book does though—or I should say, what it did for me—is offer the strange comfort. A century after Zamyatin diagnosed the emergence of another modern world, the human position remains essentially unchanged, and in times of despair we can remember to laugh—and imagine to imagine. Very highly recommended.


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Diet soda and heart attacks. Diet soda drinkers may have an increased risk of experiencing heart attack and death.
Researchers at the Columbia University Medical Center have found that people who drank diet soft drinks daily were 43% more likely to have had a heart attack or died of heart disease, than those who did not drink diet soda.
Darrin McBreen unveils the hoax around Aspartame, marketed as a safe sugar substitute, but in reality a dangerous artificial compound that should be avoided.
Powerful drug and chemical lobbies may be responsible for letting loose the hounds of disease and death on an unsuspecting and uninformed public.
You buy the Poison – You buy the Disease.


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The time has come for my final post of the Cat Lovers Hop. Wahhh! But, Wahoo-kachoo! We just passed our peak number of 149 entries from last year!!
It has been a week of the highest quality with the 4c's … Cats, Coffee, Crafting & Chocolate. We make clarity, cut, color and carat jealous! Lol! (BTW: If you want some better chuckles, be sure to read to the very end!)
I'm closing with this pair of elegant and fun cards:
(Special thanks to my aunt for making that gorgeous cross-stitched kitty and orchid!)
I love how well that embossing folder goes with the geometric 'ball', don't you?!
And on the inside are these cute bookmarks:
Since I cut the cats as a pair, it was easy to mix & match the pieces for a second card:
For the bookmark on this one, I cut a second one out of the god cardstock, but put the paper in reverse and glued them together so both the front and back are gold.
Which do YOU prefer? I kind of lean toward the black background.
Materials used:
- Penny Black dies: Fancy Cat, Geometrics & Bookmark Tab
- Penny Black Nine Lives Stamp set (sentiment)
- We R Memory Keepers Sequence embossing folder
- Core'dinations cardstock: black, white & green
- Colorbok Shiny Gold Metallc Paper
- The Paper Company Black Glimmer paper
- Recollections Glitter Paper: Snow
- Tsukineko Versamark ink
- Inkadinkado embossing powders: black & linen white
- Copic marker: RV02
- Sakura Pigma Micron archival ink black 005
- Tonic Studios Nuvo Crystal Drops – Bubble Gum Blush
- Sookwang Scor-tape double-sided adhesive
I am entering these cards in the following hops and challenges – click on any one of them for more information on how you can join in on the fun!
- 2017 Cat Lovers Hop – White background (Black via IG)
- Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – Monochrome (because black, white and gold are neutrals, that just leaves Green! White background via this page, (Black via IG)
- CropStop Linky Party #33 – anything goes – just one, as that makes 5 (Core'dinations, Pigma Micron, Scor-Tape, Tsukineko, We R Memory Keepers)
Okay, it's time for the final hint for my Blog Candy Giveaway games from THIS post. Although you can only count it once, this archaic four-letter-word, meaning 'a dainty or choice food, a delicacy' can be found 6 times in the puzzle. Still having trouble? No worries, you will still get entries for the Bonus questions, whether or not you get the answers to #1 and #2 correct. Have fun!
Also: if any of you early birds have found some words you missed with the clues the past few posts and want to change your answer to #1, for the early bird may get the worm, but the late cat gets both. Lol! This morning I received the first correct answer to #1 and #3. Many of you mamaged to get #2 already. If anyone wants to change their answers, you still have time to resubmit a revised answer. : ) You have until 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, Sunday, October 29, 2017 to finish up and submit your final answers via e-mail. Don't forget to check back on Monday, October 30, 2017 – hopefully, before noon PACIFIC time for my winners and answers post.
Note: If Potential Tropical Cyclone 18 (likely to be named Tropical Storm Philippe) continues as predicted, we will have winds and up to 8″ of rain tonight and tomorrow. This usually wouldn't be a problem, but coming on the heels of Irma, who knows what the power lines here will do. (friends just a couple of miles from me were out of electric a whole week (which sounds like nothing compared to the Keys and Caribbean).) Anyway, if my post happens to be late, you'll know why. Best way not to miss it: subscribe to follow my blog!
It's been a wonderful hop and my mind is already spinning with ideas for next year's hop. (No hard puzzles, I promise!) Hopefully I'll see you all back here way before then. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the funnies below!
Warm, furry hugs,
p.s. any ads on this page are placed by WordPress and are not endorsed by me.
Well, you saw that I started out as a crazy cat kid and then went on to be a wild cat teen… here I am today:
Actually – that's our hop host Janis with her clowder of 18… I just Photoshopped my Bitmoji avatar in the picture. Lol!
I thought I'd close with a few fun things I recently found while surfing the net:


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The wind has changed
March 21, 2019
The last four years have been pretty epic since I quit my job to embark on self-employed life. I've had opportunities I never imagined and I've learned so much about upcycling and blogging I couldn't even begin to write it all down. I've presented furniture paint videos, given talks on blogging, won an award for … More The wind has changed


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Search.searchmmd.com is a homepage redirect adware that works alongside My Map Directions program. Actually, the adware acts as browser extension and can gain access on the computer without user's knowledge. It arrives on the computer next to downloaded freeware or shareware. Normal distribution channel of such malicious free programs are pop-up advertisements, redirects, and suspicious websites.
Unknown to many computer users, installing dubious freeware can execute a bunch of potentially unwanted programs on the system. In the case of Search.searchmmd.com, it is associated to freeware that comes as software bundle, which contains questionable programs. Therefore, installing the free software likewise loads all the contents of the bundle including adware and Search.searchmmd.com.
Search.searchmmd.com intends to dominate the browser by letting My Map Directions extension to modify various settings. As usual, it will overrule configuration to set Search.searchmmd.com as default homepage, new tab, and search provider. In addition, it can place some code to monitor user's online activity and browsing habit.
Search.searchmmd.com features like route directions, weather update, news, maps, and online search are all useful. However, the way this program enters the computer is very suspicious and we can sense that it has some illicit intent. Therefore, it is suggested to take it off from the computer as soon as possible. There are other safe and trusted alternative to Search.searchmmd.com. Just scour the web for other maps and directions programs with high trust ratings.
Update: August 13, 2019
New version of the My Map Directions homepage hijacker was spotted recently and it is using the address searchmmd5.com. See screenshot image below.
Search.searchmmd.com Removal Procedure
Below is a systematic instruction that is very useful in getting rid of the browser hijacker from compromised computer.
In order to totally eliminate the threat, it is vital to follow the process in exact manner.
Stage 1: Delete Browser Extension
Most homepage hijacker and redirects are using a program called browser extension to be able to take over the settings of internet applications. Therefore, we highly recommend to check and remove the extension that is closely related to Search.searchmmd.com.
Remove Search.searchmmd.com Extension from Google Chrome
1. Open Google Chrome browser.
2. Type chrome://extensions/ in the address bar and press Enter on keyboard.
3. Find Search.searchmmd.com, My Map Directions, or relevant entry and remove it from Google Chrome.
Uninstall Extension from Firefox
1. Open Mozilla Firefox browser.
2. Type about:addons in the address bar and press Enter on keyboard.
3. Choose Extensions on sidebar menu.
4. Look for object that is pertaining to Search.searchmmd.com or My Map Directions, and remove it from the browser.
Delete Extension from Safari
1. Run Safari browser application.
2. Click on Safari Settings icon located on upper right corner of the window.
3. Choose Preferences from the drop-down list.
4. On Extension window, select Extensions tab.
5. Select Search.searchmmd.com, My Map Directions, or relevant entry and remove it from Safari.
Remove Add-ons from Internet Explorer
1. Open Internet Explorer program.
2. Go to top Menu and click Tools. Then, select Manage Add-ons from the drop-down list.
3. Look for and Remove or Disable entries of Search.searchmmd.com from Toolbars and Extension and Search Providers section.
4. Close the window and restart Internet Explorer.
If Search.searchmmd.com is still present on the IE browser, another option is to remove the adware from Windows Control Panel.
5. Press Windows Key + R and then, type appwiz.cpl command.
6. Program and Features window will open. Arrange the list in chronological manner with recently installed applications on top. To do this, click on 'Installed On' column.
7. Select Search.searchmmd.com, My Map Directions, or recently installed unwanted entry. Then, click on Uninstall to remove it from Windows system.
Stage 2: Scan and Delete Adware with AdwCleaner
In addition to the procedure, we suggest scanning the computer with AdwCleaner tool. Possibly, there are some traces of Search.searchmmd.com on the browser that was not deleted during the preceding steps. This tool will scan the computer and check for presence of malicious applications.
1. Follow the link below to download the tool called AdwCleaner.
Click here to download AdwCleaner (this will open a new window)
2. When the download has completed, please close all running programs on the computer especially browsers affected by Search.searchmmd.com.
3. Browse the location of the downloaded file and double-click on adwcleaner_Ver.exe to start running the tool. Then, click on Scan button.
4. AdwCleaner searches the computer for malicious programs, extensions, plug-ins, adware, and any items that may be associated to Search.searchmmd.com.
5. Clean or Remove all suspicious and harmful items identified after the thorough scan.
6. After the cleanup procedure, rebooting the computer is required to finalize the removal of detected threats.
Stage 3: Remove Search.searchmmd.com Add-on and Cleanup the Browser
Preceding steps may have removed Search.searchmmd.com from the browser already. This next procedure is needed to double-check that browser is free from any adware remnants especially from Search.searchmmd.com. Avast Browser Cleanup is a free tool that restores the browser to its initial, clean state. It will get rid of annoying browser extensions, toolbars, and search hijackers.
1. Click the link below to download this free tool.
Avast Browser Cleanup Download Link (This will open in a new window)
2. To run the installer, please double-click the executable file avast-browser-cleanup-sfx.exe.
3. Run the tool to start analyzing the browsers. It will state whether browser is free from threats or cleanup is needed. Perform suggested cleanup if the tool found suspicious extensions, add-ons, or plug-ins.
4. If Avast Browser Cleanup verifies if you want to permanently delete suspicious entries, click Yes to proceed with the removal of Search.searchmmd.com.
Stage 4: Scan the Computer with Sophos Virus Removal Tool
Lastly, we will scan the computer with a multi-function security program. This will inspect the computer for possible presence of virus, malware, rootkit, adware as well as unwanted homepage like Search.searchmmd.com.
1. Download Sophos Virus Removal Tool from the link below. Save the file on your computer where you can easily access it.
Sophos Virus Removal Tool Download Link (this will open a new window)
2. Once the download completes, browse the location of the file. Double-click to run the program and begin the install process. If Windows prompts for User Account Control, please click Yes to proceed.
3. On first windows of installation wizard, click Next to continue. Then, it will display the program's License Agreement. You need to Accept the terms in order to proceed.
4. On succeeding windows, click Next or Continue to carry on with the installation. After completing the installation process, Launch Sophos Virus Removal Tool.
5. Internet connection is required when running this scanner in order to download important updates. Make sure that everything is up-to-date to effectively remove malicious program like Search.searchmmd.com.
6. Click the button to carry out the Scan. This will check the system for presence of malicious objects, malware, and viruses. The tool reveals items that were found linked to Search.searchmmd.com and other suspicious entities. Be sure to remove all identified threats.
Option: Alternative Method to Clean Up Internet Browser from Search.searchmmd.com
Not all browser hijackers are the same. Some cannot be removed by deleting relevant extensions and codes. On this instances, resetting the browser to default configuration is the only best solution. If Search.searchmmd.com is still bothering you after completing all the steps above, please execute the procedures below to reset the settings of affected browser program.
Use Chrome Clean Up Tool to Delete Search.searchmmd.com
1. Open Google Chrome application.
2. Type this strings in the address box: chrome://settings/ and then, press Enter on keyboard.
3. Scroll down and expand Advanced settings area.
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page until you see Reset and Cleanup section.
5. Click on Clean Up Computer. On next page, please click FIND to proceed.
This feature of Google Chrome aims to find harmful software and remove it instantly. If unable to delete Search.searchmmd.com, the other option is to Reset Google Chrome settings to its original defaults. Just go back to previous page (Clean Up Computer) and reset the settings. See more details on this page.
Reset Mozilla Firefox to Default
If Mozilla Firefox is affected by Search.searchmmd.com and procedures above were not helpful, we suggest that you carry out these steps. This process can fix the issue by restoring Firefox browser to default factory state. Most browser data will be affected but not bookmarks, browsing history, passwords, and internet cookies. Extensions and other installed plug-ins maybe deleted by this function. Therefore, if you wish to remove specific extension only, please see manual add-on removal from this link.
1. Open Mozilla Firefox browser and type the following in the address bar: about:support
2. Browser will be directed to a page of Troubleshooting Information. You will notice a section on upper-right corner of the screen stating 'Give Firefox a Tune Up'. Click the Refresh Firefox button.
3. Confirmation window will pop-up, click Refresh Firefox to continue.
4. The reset process will automatically close the browser and proceed with the restoration. Next, it will display a list of restored data. Search.searchmmd.com should be gone by now. Click Finish to close the current window and open a fresh window of Mozilla Firefox.
Reset Safari Browser to Normal Settings
1. Open Safari browser.
2. Click on the Safari Settings icon located on upper right corner of the browser window.
3. Select Reset Safari from the drop-down list.
4. Pop-up window will appear. You may select all boxes for total reset or follow the options below if you only want to remove Search.searchmmd.com from Safari browser.
5. Please restart Safari browser for changes to take effect.
Restore Internet Explorer to Default Settings
1. Open Internet Explorer browser.
2. On top menu, click Tools, and then Internet Options. It will open a new window.
3. Select Advanced tab. See image below.
4. On Reset Internet Explorer Settings area, click the Reset button to start the restoration procedures.
This process will not affect browsing history, bookmarks, and favorites. Add-ons and other integrated codes will be deleted including those that are linked to Search.searchmmd.com. If you choose to perform the procedure manually, please view instructions here.


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Pity the poor marketing manager of a 1980s major record label.
Everyone was telling you the future was in PR. The musicians were no longer running the music industry – the suits were. Millions of pounds were sloshing around but a dodgy decision could cost you your job.
Label MDs had read their Dale Carnegies or at least their Peter Yorks. Everyone wanted to hobnob with Branson. And for every proverbial 'fifth member of the band' manager like Paul McGuinness or Ed Bicknell, there was a PR like Magenta Devine.
And, as James Grant of Love And Money (more from them below) once told movingtheriver.com, people had breakdowns over this stuff. But is it any wonder when staffers were sending radio programmers and promoters gifts like the following? (All are 100% authentic, and based on extensive research*.)
17. Doobie Brothers dope kit
It included a Doobies logo'd stash pouch, rolling machine and 'skins'…
16. INXS pyjamas
These sartorial delights were embroidered with the time-honoured phrase 'I Need You Tonight'. Groan…
15. Prefab Sprout snow globe
This cute little number featured some mini skyscrapers and bore the legend 'Hey Manhattan!' Unfortunately it couldn't hype this Paddy classic into the top 40…
14. 10,000 Maniacs ceramic elephant teapot
A useful mammalian kitchen implement that was sent around to promote the Blind Man's Zoo album.
13. Simply Red dressing gown
A his'n'hers, terry-towelling dressing gown to promote the Men And Women album. See what they did there?
12. Bob Seger windcheater
It was sleevless, quilted and defiantly macho, as befitting the proletarian singer/songwriter. And it was sent to promote…you guessed it… 'Against The Wind'!
11. Brothers Johnson zippo cigarette lighter
The funk legends' PR machine came up with this curio for fans to hoist aloft during 'Light Up The Night'.
10. WASP bottle of 'house red'
This disgusting blood-coloured beverage was sent around to promote the Live…In The Raw live album.
9. Billy Bragg teabag
As befitting the socialist icon, a marvellously utilitarian artefact to celebrate the release of the Brewing Up With… album.
8. Kirsty MacColl kite
7. Love And Money road atlas
This hand-bound tome failed to hype 'Jocelyn Square' into the top 40, though it remains a great single.
6. Madness pacamac
It was advertising their downbeat single 'The Sun And The Rain'. And why not?
5. Eurythmics umbrella
To promote…you guessed it…'Here Comes The Rain Again'. Obviously did a pretty good job, to be fair – the single reached #8 in the UK charts.
4. ZZ Top frozen meal
Those naughty boys from Texas sent this around to promote – of course – 'TV Dinners'.
3. Frankie Goes To Hollywood condom
One of Paul Morley's better ideas, actually…
2. PiL jigsaw puzzle
A very strange object sent around to promote Johnny and the boys' 9 album.
1. Kane Gang walkman
No, me neither…
*Copied from a Q magazine listicle circa 1989


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This community exists as a sister community/copycat community to the r/fuckcars subreddit.
This community exists for the following reasons:
You can find the Matrix chat room for this community here.
Be nice to each other. Being aggressive or inflammatory towards other users will get you banned. Name calling or obvious trolling falls under that. Hate cars, hate the system, but not people. While some drivers definitely deserve some hate, most of them didn't choose car-centric life out of free will.
No bigotry or hate. Racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, homophobia, chauvinism, fat-shaming, body-shaming, stigmatization of people experiencing homeless or substance users, etc. are not tolerated. Don't use slurs. You can laugh at someone's fragile masculinity without associating it with their body. The correlation between car-culture and body weight is not an excuse for fat-shaming.
Stay on-topic. Submissions should be on-topic to the externalities of car culture in urban development and communities globally. Posting about alternatives to cars and car culture is fine. Don't post literal car fucking.
No traffic violence. Do not post depictions of traffic violence. NSFW or NSFL posts are not allowed. Gawking at crashes is not allowed. Be respectful to people who are a victim of traffic violence or otherwise traumatized by it. News articles about crashes and statistics about traffic violence are allowed. Glorifying traffic violence will get you banned.
No reposts. Before sharing, check if your post isn't a repost. Reposts that add something new are fine. Reposts that are sharing content from somewhere else are fine too.
No misinformation. Masks and vaccines save lives during a pandemic, climate change is real and anthropogenic - and denial of these and other established facts will get you banned. False or highly speculative titles will get your post deleted.
No harassment. Posts that (may) cause harassment, dogpiling or brigading, intentionally or not, will be removed. Please do not post screenshots containing uncensored usernames. Actual harassment, dogpiling or brigading is a bannable offence.
Please report posts and comments that violate our rules.


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We have two completely unrelated topics from Germany and France, but both fit in the broader theme of Europe's gradual, self-inflicted suicide.
Let's start with the Germans. I'm not a big fan of the country's Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She is supposedly a conservative, but she certainly hasn't done much to reduce the burden of government. But I give her credit for making the rational and moral observation that, "I'm glad that killing bin Laden was successful."
Based on the reaction, however, you would think she had come out in favor of torturing puppies. Here are some excerpts from a story on a German news site.
Katrin Göring-Eckardt, Green party MP, Bundestag vice president and leading member of the Evangelical Church of Germany, told the Berliner Zeitung she was glad bin Laden was no longer leading a terrorist group. "But you can't be happy about his death," she said. On Monday, Merkel told reporters that bin Laden's death at the hands of US forces was "good news." "I'm glad that killing bin Laden was successful," she said. The criticism of Merkel's comments came not only from political opposition, but from her own party, echoing discomfort expressed by some observers at the emotional, celebratory reaction of many Americans and foreign politicians around the world after bin Laden's killing. Siegfried Kauder, a member of Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), slammed her remarks, calling them reminiscent of something a person would say in the "middle ages."
I'm not an expert on Germany's political system and I'm certainly not a close observer of the nation's various political figures, so I have no idea if these critics really believe the things they said. But does that really matter? It's a bad sign if you have a nation where the political elite actually feel sadness that a monster is dead. And it's a bad sign if you have a nation where the political elite think they should act like it's unfortunate that a monster is dead.
Let's now shift to the French. There's been a lot of attention paid to bailouts of Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, which certainly is appropriate since all of us should be outraged that we are paying (via the IMF) to reward profligate politicians and special-interest groups.
Unfortunately, there are more nations in fiscal trouble, which probably means even more bailouts. Most people think Spain, Italy, and Belgium are next in line, but France is a dark-horse contender in the race to fiscal crisis. Read some of what Matthew Lynn wrote in his Bloomberg column.
It is increasingly politically unstable, its debt position is getting worse all the time, it is losing competitiveness against Germany, and it shows little willingness to change. Those are all good reasons for the bond markets to make France the next battleground. …France's debt position is getting worse all the time. In 2010, the nation ran the fifth-biggest budget deficit in the euro area, at 7 percent of GDP. It was beaten only by Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain — hardly great company. Its stock of outstanding government debt hit 81 percent of GDP in 2010. That figure will reach 90 percent this year and 95 percent in 2012, according to London-based consulting firm Capital Economics. Italy has more outstanding debt — 119 percent of GDP in 2010 — but it isn't adding to the pile the same way France is. What the markets really look at is the direction you are traveling in — and in the case of France, it isn't good. …Sarkozy came to power promising to shake up the economy. He delivered little. …it is hard to believe that the euro crisis will end with the bailout of Portugal. Other countries are going to get caught in the crossfire. When you look around for the next candidate, France has what it takes to be the next blowup.
I still think Spain goes bust first, but Lynn makes a compelling case. Bad things are bound to happen when politicians expand the burden of government, increase tax burdens, and expand dependency. And that's been the pattern in France, regardless of who's in charge.
Notwithstanding my snarky title, the purpose of this post is not mock the Germans and the French. I'm certainly not averse to some good-natured ribbing of foreigners, but there's a serious point to be made. Moral relativism and big government are signs of societal decay, and my real concern is that America is slowly heading down the same path as Western Europe.
Let's learn from Germany and France and avoid making the same mistakes.


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July! Summer is in full swing, though it hasn't really felt that way. We have had a lot of rain and it hasn't been very warm either. I hope that means we will have a long warm fall. Please gods let it mean that.
We did a little travelling, close to home these past couple of weekends, so I have a peek into my home kitchen and travel kitchen as well.
If you follow us on Instagram @cookswithevie you would have already seen some of what we have been up to. We have been eating a lot too!
Made lilac water, very fancy
Used up some of our chive blossoms to make chive blossom vinegar
This is Evie's treat. She likes it straight up on tortilla chips. She doesn't get that it is for putting on other food. Her aunt let her try it on a tortilla and now that is how she wants it, 😂
And a little walk rewarded us with some wild strawberries, so tiny and so sweet
Night #2 a marshmallow roast, we made s'mores
The first radish from the garden patch
If you like something, just order a case…I love this coffee
And found these beautiful dates, have a stock of those too. Awesome stuffed with almond butter.
The "In My Kitchen" monthly theme host is Sherry, from sherryspickings.blogspot.ie If you would like to know what is happening in other kitchens or join IMK head over to Sherry's blog and check out all the other IMK participants and join in.