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The presidential candidates, in coordination with the White House, are taking aggressive steps to facilitate a smooth transfer of power to the new administration.
At the top of the agenda are national security and the economy, of course. However, considering the housing market kick-started the over-leveraged credit debacle, the administration must act swiftly to address the drifting housing market, which weighs so heavily on the economy.
First, the problem must be properly diagnosed. Rampant foreclosures, collapsing housing values, sloppy underwriting and anemic sales are the symptoms of the larger problem during the boom: too much liquidity chasing bad loans in an unaffordable housing market.
The market downturn has zapped liquidity, pushed down home prices and put a stop to poor underwriting — this correction has, in effect, already rid the market of its worst woes.
But foreclosures are the consequence, which is keeping the housing market from finding a balance, as more and more homes are dumped on the market, further pushing down values. And the credit crunch has pushed underwriting standards to the other extreme, limiting the number of qualified borrowers who can purchase the rising number of home listings.
Stemming the number of foreclosures will go a long way to stabilizing the market, which should be the administration's first step. Clearly, the new president's first job is swift action on the human misery side of this mess.
With that challenge at the top, here is our to-do list for the next occupant of the Oval Office.
Institutionalize loan modification activity
FDIC head Sheila Bair has been experimenting with controversial programs that facilitate loan modifications, but the program is not scaling fast enough to keep pace with foreclosures. The private market is confronting the upside-down mortgage problem with lenders quietly accepting modification terms brought to them by brokers and lawyers.
This submarket should be encouraged but also regulated to insure that fees are not excessive, that the public purpose is achieved and that it is not a way to deceive people into modifying their loans into worse loans. The new administration must also find a balance that is fair — helping the most needy borrowers — as well as not ignoring the need for expanding the supply of mortgage credit.
Rebuild faith in the secondary mortgage market
Liquidity is at dangerously low levels as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac recover. But confidence in these institutions must be restored, so liquidity is stable. With proper oversight and vanilla loan products, the secondary market will find a new level of risk and reward as investors return cautiously and slowly. Regulation (below) will play an important hand returning trust to the mortgage market.
Expand the scope of FHA
The Federal Housing Administration has always played a powerful hand in the U.S. housing market in times of market failures. Its share of home loans has jumped from 4 percent to more than 15 percent in the last year. However, FHA has had its share of scandals over the decades and should not be unleashed unattended.
Bring dignity to renting
Homeownership is the American Dream. We have learned, however, it is not for everyone. An unevenness was given to owning over renting in the last two decades, as Republicans and Democrats ignored the needs of the nation's rental market. The government rewards homeownership with more than $100 billion in tax subsidies on interest and property tax deductions. A new priority should be placed on renting a decent home at reasonable rents.
Re-tool federal housing programs
The federal government expenditures for affordable housing exceeds $40 billion. These programs should be re-thought in the current economic environment to give maximum help to those in need: low-income renters and people facing foreclosure.
Re-think regulation
An entirely new regulatory system must be put in place to bring oversight to the real estate market. One of those steps must be regulating real estate agents more like stockbrokers, where their fiduciary obligations are clear and the penalties are severe. Good agents will pass the test, bad ones will not and the market will be more transparent with fewer but more qualified agents.
Beef up RESPA
A core regulatory framework is in place to bring more transparency to the backend of the real estate transaction, preventing dubious relationships and excessive fees that are buried in the paperwork. RESPA should be bulked up, including more resources to enforce and punish those who do not comply.
Housing leadership
The administration must find new and capable leadership who are more than cheerleaders for the market but also leaders in crafting good long-term housing policy and fettering out shenanigans and corruption. Industry players who have conflicts of interest have filled too many housing positions across the country, including state real estate regulators.
Restore fundamental values for achieving homeownership
The government must stand on the side of savings — not consumption — when it comes to housing. That means building and designing housing that is to the scale of people's needs as well as encouraging sensible down payments, even-handed mortgages and usury rates on second and third mortgage loans to prevent predatory lending.
Resist quick housing stimulus packages
In haste, governments often do things that have unintended consequences. This market correction must be allowed within limits to correct, which means bad lenders, irresponsible borrowers and poorly managed companies will go under. In addition, the market needed downward adjustment on housing prices and should not be followed by government actions to immediately stimulate housing inflation. This markets needs stability, not any more wild gyrations.
What's your opinion? Leave your comments below or send a letter to the editor.


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Now, in most cases, something like news of Dark Night of the Soul would be your prototypical April Fools' joke – a high-profile collaboration of two of music's biggest names (Sparklehorse and Danger Mouse) that comes with no real details other than a cryptic promotional poster. But seeing as that the aforementioned promotional poster first popped up during last month's South by Southwest, and was furthered highlighted yesterday, aka the day before April Fool's day, by Stereogum, I think it might be safe to call Dark Night of the Soul the real McCoy.
So, what exactly is Dark Night of the Soul?
Well, as far we can tell, it looks to be the end result of what has been a two-year collaboration between super producer Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse frontman Mark Linkous. According to Pitchfork, the two have been working on an album since 2006, one which includes a slew of equally high-profile guest spots. From the promotional portion, it looks as if Black Francis, The Strokes' Julian Casablancas, The Flaming Lips, James Mercer, Iggy Pop, and Gruff Rhys are among these guest.
Now as of now, nothing is confirmed, but considering the poster ends with "Album Coming Summer 2009," it's safe to say we'll know more sooner rather than later. If anyting, it will give that other "dark" project a run for its money…

subset: commoncrawl


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Today we feature a car that was the product of a highly effective facelift of its stodgy predecessor.
The 1997 Golf Mk4 is widely acknowledged as a masterpiece of disciplined and rational design. Its svelte exterior was handsome and timeless, and a huge improvement over the flabby Mk3. The interior was a revelation, bringing a level of quality to the Golf that had not been seen before in C-segment cars. The Mk4 remained on the market for eight years, during which time it remained virtually untouched, Volkswagen sensibly realising that it was impossible to improve upon its near perfection.
When it came time to replace the Mk4, Volkswagen dropped the ball. The 2003 Golf Mk5, whilst not exactly ugly, looked rather corpulent, and much of the detailing was rather too fussy for a Golf. The Mk5 was partly a product of VW Group Chairman Ferdinand Piëch's aggressive strategy to move Volkswagen upmarket to challenge Mercedes-Benz, with Audi tasked to challenge BMW.
The understated reserve of the Mk4 was replaced by a rather more showy aesthetic, with complex light graphics and, on the range-topping R32 model, the large and heavily chromed bib front grille that became a hallmark of high-spec New Millennium Volkswagens. However, and despite Piëch's lofty ambitions for the marque, the interior was adjudged to have taken a backward step in quality from the Mk4.
Tellingly, the Golf Mk5 lasted only five years on the market, compared to at least seven for each of its predecessors. The Golf Mk6 was revealed at the Paris Salon in September 2008 and went on sale immediately, a year earlier than previously promised.
The Mk6 was not an all-new car, but a clever makeover of the Mk5. While it retained the centre section of the outgoing model, it introduced simpler and cleaner front and rear ends, successfully restoring what most would perceive to be Golf design cues to the model(1). This was less straightforward than it might have seemed: the designer had to meld the new more angular light units and a slim, horizontal grille with the smooth and fulsome curves of the original design, but did so very successfully(2).
The interior quality was also restored to the level of the Mk4. Unusually for what was a facelifted model, the Mk6 was almost as long-lived as its predecessor and remained on the market until January 2013.
It was to Volkswagen's credit that they did not attempt to improve the Golf Mk4 with a facelift, but the same cannot be said of the contemporary Passat, the 1997 B5 model. Like the Golf, this was another masterful design and very much in the same mould, elegant in a disciplined and understated way.
Understatement was, however, not what Piëch wanted in his quest to challenge Mercedes-Benz, so a facelift was ordered. The revised car, the 2001 B5.5, was given a deeper front grille, now separated from the slimmer but busier looking headlamps, which were raised and cut into the leading edge of the bonnet. At the rear, the taillights were revised to be larger with more complex graphics. The changes were relatively minor, but none was an improvement over the original design, which like the contemporary Golf, was impossible to enhance.
(1) One detail where the Mk6 deviated from the Golf design standards was in the treatment of the rear light clusters. Uniquely on a Golf, these were allowed to cut into the rear wing and interrupt the continuity of the tailgate shut line, which had previously continued downward to meet the bumper to wing panel gap. The traditional treatment was restored on the Mk7 and continues on the latest Mk8 model.
(2) Much more successfully than the misbegotten 2013 facelift to the Škoda Yeti, where new angular front and rear ends sat uncomfortably against the highly distinctive original design.


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Project Overview
Art Matters
Creating a center for socially engaged art and design
Express Newark was conceived as an art-making "third space" in which the university and community would come together with equal voices and experiences. As cultural institutions all across the United States face a reckoning over racial injustice, Express Newark urgently responds to these demands by valuing art's ability to amplify marginalized voices, address critical issues, and advocate for change. This initiative addresses many of Rutgers' strategic priorities.
Express Newark advances Rutgers University–Newark's role as an "anchor" institution in the city while promoting its vibrant cultural and artistic communities. It is a place in which Rutgers students and faculty and Newark residents learn and work together and collaborate on making art that matters—art that changes their lives and the world. Its dynamic partnerships with the City of Newark's Department of Arts and Cultural Affairs and New Jersey's premier cultural institutions such as the Newark Museum of Art, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Project for Empty Space, and WBGO, have enabled Express Newark—within just two years—to emerge as one of the city's cornerstone art institutions.
When it opened in 2017, Express Newark was part of a multifunctional project in Newark's Hahne & Co. building, the downtown site of a former iconic department store now undergoing a complete renovation after having been shuttered for 30 years. An exemplar of creative placemaking, Express Newark activated 50,000 square feet of the massive 500,000-square-foot building. L+M Developers credits anchor tenants Rutgers–Newark and Whole Foods with securing construction funding from the project's key investors, Prudential and Goldman Sachs.
Express Newark is now a center for socially engaged art and design in which faculty, students, artists, and community residents learn about, collaborate, and create art to advocate for social change. Before the Civil Rights Movement, the Hahne & Co. department store required its African-American customers to use a separate entrance. Express Newark turns that history on its head by welcoming and empowering all who enter the building to engage with each other, take classes, and create art together. Like Rutgers University at large, Express Newark is a type of public commons—both of the campus and in the community.
Art That Matters
Express Newark is one of the most vibrant art institutions in the city, actively contributing to the local economy and providing diverse opportunities for Newarkers to experience and participate in the arts and spur university-community collaboration to generate publicly engaged scholarship. Through curriculum, programming, artist residencies, and community partnerships centered on socially engaged art and design, Express Newark will transcend the boundaries of the Hahne building by creating environments, experiences, and entry points for artists to create art that matters and for others to be involved with or near that creativity. Art will be made, consumed, studied, celebrated, digested, debated, questioned, and improved here.
Express Newark is abuzz with activity, some out loud and collaborative, some quiet and solitary, but all safe and accessible for artists, students, and Newarkers. It encourages them to redefine excellence and impact based on collective well-being and social justice. Express Newark is a model and beacon for universities, cities, cultural organizations, and artists. Building on the architectural history of Hahne & Co., Express Newark is a luxurious and vibrant place to create art that matters.
Project Champion
Salamishah Tillet
The Henry Rutgers Professor of African American Studies and Creative Writing; founding director of the New Arts Social Justice Initiative at Express Newark; associate director of the Clement Price Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience; and executive director of Express Newark, July 2021.
Tillet is a leading scholar of American and African-American studies, a contributing critic at large for The New York Times, and a foremost feminist leader. Through her scholarship and activism, she has spent her career championing artists and building nonprofit institutions that promote art as a powerful catalyst for social change.
Since joining Rutgers–Newark, the celebrated author and activist (and Newark resident) has led three major public art projects in the city: A Call to Peace, a temporary monument exhibition in Military Park; the All Black Lives Matter Murals for Justice in downtown Newark; and the Will You Be My Monument mural supported by the Four Corners Public Arts collaborative. Each of these projects asked the public to explore the relationship between race, place, and history in American civic life.
She is the author of Sites of Slavery: Citizenship and Racial Democracy in the Post-Civil Rights Imagination (Duke, 2012) and In Search of The Color Purple: The Story of Alice Walker's Masterpiece (Abrams, 2021).


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Members of the self-righteous wanker community often make the boast that they Speak Truth To Power. Far more valuable, I think, is my own practice of Telling Fibs To Impuissance.
For example, the other day I was prancing along the canal towpath when I saw, lugging himself towards me on crutches, a penniless crippled orphan dressed in rags.
"Ahoy there, young wretch!" I cried, imparting as much condescension and contempt into my words as possible, "Did you know that the earth is as flat as a pancake?"
The hobbledehoy was baffled and distraught at this news, pleasingly so, and I continued.
"Not only that, but the Munich Air Disaster took place in 1962, the Tet Offensive was something to do with King Canute, and gooseberries fall from heaven upon the wide Sargasso Sea, from where they are harvested by trained cormorants."
Tugging his greasy forelock, the orphan child said "Thankee kindly, sir, when I arrive at my self-esteem 'n' diversity learning centre I shall pass on these nuggets of wisdom in the exam paper I am sitting today."
"You will pass with flying colours!" I replied, chortling inwardly as I pictured the impuissant youth weeping copious tears upon learning that he has failed his exam with the lowest of all possible scores.
Then I snatched away his crutches and pushed him into the canal, before passing on to an unbelievably luxurious cafeteria for a slap-up breakfast.
I did not prance along the canal towpath. I did not encounter a crippled orphan. I did not have a slap-up breakfast.


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Hope Chest at The Crossings celebrates first anniversary
Shoppers can enjoy popcorn and complimentary blood pressure screenings as Hope Chest at The Crossings celebrates their first anniversary on Saturday, March 5 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Visitors to the upscale resale store can discover an ever-changing inventory of designer-brand clothing, high-quality furniture, specialty home goods, antiques and collectibles.
Proceeds from Hope Chest at The Crossings benefit Hope HealthCare Services programs that provide exceptional care and support to individuals and their loved ones as they fulfill life's journey.
Located at 28520 Bonita Crossings Blvd., off U.S. 41 south of Bonita Beach Road, Hope Chest at The Crossings is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Donations are accepted from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Saturday.
For information about volunteer opportunities or donating items to the Hope Chest Resale Stores, call 239-482-4673 or visit www.HopeHCS.org.


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Cuts in spending and the replacement of academic staff by technology are not the only pressures faced by British academia. Increasingly, education is fashioning students into a productive labor force rather than teaching them more traditional academic ideals.
Last year's plans to raise tuition fees in Britain to a maximum of £9000, $13,731 at today's exchange rate, were coterminous with cuts of £2 billion in funding for education. Universities' lack of funding caused them to compensate for lost income by hiking up tuition fees. This is perceived as disastrous for Britain's progression up the global league tables, which, conducted by the Times educational supplement, rank universities by teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. With increasing competition from universities around the world, the UK's University and College Union warns that Britain is at risk of being left behind.
The neoliberal turn to privatization and the commercialization of education is an area of concern for British universities. Since the 1980s, neoliberalism has been expressing itself in university syllabi. Abandoning previous values of critical-thinking and challenging basic assumptions, the focus leans towards teaching vaguely defined "skills" such as "teamwork," "communication" and "leadership."
Such effects are evident in the recently "enhanced" course guides at the London School of Economics (LSE). The LSE is a private university that specializes in the social sciences and ranks third in the university league tables for the UK. The university's new course guides include 'skills'-sets that lecturers have to tick off as they incorporate them into their lessons. Such an approach propounds an entrepreneurial attitude over the goals previously associated with the social sciences. As sociologist Stephen Ball claims, in such institutions students as commodities transforms education into a "big business" rather than education for education's sake.
What is neoliberalism?
In the 1970s, responding to a period of stagflation (inflation with rising unemployment), former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former U.S. President Ronald Reagan were the first to advocate the creeds of neoliberalism. This involved political-economic practices of privatization and deregulation besides the promotion of free markets and free trade. Neoliberalism rapidly spread across all G7 countries (the seven wealthiest countries on earth, the US, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan) before being imposed via violent military coups onto many countries in the 'developing' world, including Iraq, Poland and most of South America.
According to geographer and anthropologist, David Harvey, proponents of neoliberalism hold positions of incredible power in university think-tanks as well as in financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The main intent of neoliberalism is to generate wealth by opening up countries to free trade, trade between countries that is not regulated by the government, allowing for deviance from ethical practices. However, studies such as those by economists Duménil and Lévy indicate that the primary effect of neoliberal strategies across the world has been for wealth to become increasingly concentrated within the richest strata of society. According to these studies, neoliberalism does not even improve economic growth, with global growth falling by almost 3% last year. In contrast, countries such as India and South Korea, spared from certain aspects of neoliberalism, saw rapid growth thanks to investment in industry.
Other implications of neoliberalism include the reduced power of organized labor, increased productivity paralleled by declining wages in order to extract more value, and most poignantly, as analysts such as David Harvey have found, the pumping of wealth from the poorest to the richest members of society via transfer pricing and cheap migrant labour.
Neoliberalism and higher education
Many academics are against the reforms in education taking place, whilst others argue that it is a necessity in a time of economic crisis. Doctor Jason Hickel, lecturer in Economic Anthropology at the LSE explains, "This seems like a relatively innocuous change, but to me it's a sign that the way we think about higher education is changing for the worse." Some might reject this, claiming that teaching career-orientated skills are crucial in order to bolster students against the current economic climate. "Of course, students need to get jobs upon graduating. I am sensitive to that.
The proponents of the New Enhanced Course Guides argue that students will be able to use the language from the skills section to fill out their CVs and to convince employers to hire them." Nevertheless, as Hickel argues, "The kinds of skills that the New Enhanced Course Guides [at the LSE] include, reflect the language of the corporate world and the ethic of entrepreneurial self-management. Even if they didn't, they would still send students the wrong message, namely, that education is designed to equip individuals with marketable skills, and that the ultimate end goal is productivity."
Furthermore, the way people are taught will have transformative effects on the world as a whole, as generations of students progress into the jobs market and foreign students return to their countries of origin, carrying with them the neoliberal articles of faith. After coming home with neoliberal values, many American-educated students led military coups in which the pursuit of commercial ideals implicated the death of hundreds of thousands. This was the case for Chile in 1973, where the insurgent government was led by US-educated graduates. More recently, in 2009, a coup in Honduras was led by graduates taught at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, a US training ground based in Georgia, which has been linked to to torture cases, dictatorships and military coups. Countries that experienced such coups, according to data gathered by the CIA, are among the most economically unequal in the world. With an intake of students from 145 different countries, spanning from South America to the South East Asia, the global impact of education at universities such as the LSE will be equally significant.
Besides the circulation of powerful neoliberal ideologies throughout academia, tuition hikes also become subject to marketization, the treatment of education as a business and students as a future labour force. Evidencing this, one year into its term in office, the British Conservative Party held meetings to discuss how universities could help contribute to growth in the economy.
In this process of marketization, austerity measures have led to increased tuition fees, which students find increasingly difficult to pay and applications to universities are declining. In 2011, there was a decrease of 20,000 applications. This implicates the bursting of the tuition bubble which has led to a further neoliberal assault on education through managerial-imposed readjustments of academic faculties as well as closures of poorly achieving departments. This in turn has led to declining moral and increased strategic competition between academic staff.
Education has also become increasingly quantified via standardized testing, as universities and departments are ranked by performance in a way that brushes over divergences in opinion, steering the control of curriculum and organization of departments. With layoffs as well as cessations of entire disciplines in certain universities, underachievement is blamed upon the teachers rather than the effects of reduced funding.
For example, the closure of Exeter University's chemistry department in 2006, determined principally by financial motives, was met by vociferous resentment on the part of the chemists as well as students, academic unions and the Royal Society of Chemistry. The department was shut down due to its low position in the university ranking, the high cost of running its laboratories and in order to attract further grants. Students and teachers alike responded with letters and emails of complaint. Nevertheless, the university's director, Steven Smith, persisted in this profit-making tactic.
What are the viable alternatives?
Neoliberal techniques involve the commercialization of education, focusing principally on preparing students for the world of work. As Hickel argues, "Those of us who teach in the liberal arts and social sciences generally reject this approach. We encourage our students to value learning for its own sake, and we try to sow in them a passion for asking difficult questions about the world and equip them to think critically about taken-for-granted assumptions."
From the start of the 21st century, academics and institutions have started calling for a revival of the cosmopolitan ethic ('an injury to one is an injury to all'), which provides tangible alternatives to neoliberalism. Others advocate Democratic Learning, which, in drawing on the views of the educator, John Dewey, provides a framework for teachers, involving methods influenced by the students themselves and, takes a humanist approach to teaching, concerned with human welfare. So doing, lecturers will supply students with the tools necessary to become fully active democratic citizens. As Hickel claims, "We need to be empowering students to resist this kind of commodification of everything rather than encouraging it, especially given that all indicators seem to suggest that it's leading our society down a dead-end road. For us, higher education is more about learning how to challenge the status quo rather than simply learning how to climb the ladder."
On the other hand, some take a less optimistic view of British education. As Tarak Barkawi, lecturer in Politics at the New School for Social Research explains, "For many years now in the UK, faculty have been forced to put things on their syllabi (like learning aims and outcomes) so that battle was lost some time ago." Barkawi also introduces yet another side of the debate: "For what it is worth, the neoliberal modernizers are bad, but so too are those who cite traditional academic values to protect cosy jobs, or to not do their jobs, or to carry on doing what they always have done. So you have to be a little careful at taking everything at face value."
As broached by Barkawi, the commercialization of British education is not a black and white issue but a more nuanced matter of much contention. There are those who advocate a profit-orientated education, others such as Hickel who plead for a return to critical engagement and a humanist outlook, and finally, those such as Barkawi who have a more tentative view. However, as the league tables demonstrate, for British universities not to lag behind the rest of the world there must be a reassessment of the purpose of education.


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Private Norman Philip Barlow, 102nd Battalion, Canadian Infantry and Second Lieutenant Lucien Herbert Higgs, Royal Flying Corps both died on 8th June 1917 whilst on active service.
Norman Philip Barlow was born in Kidderminster on 16th June 1893. His parents, John Barlow (a steam engine fitter) and Emily Drinkwater, married in Aston in 1872 and went on to have 13 children, of whom five had died by 1911. Norman was the second youngest of the nine known children: Rose Ada (1873-1957); Lillian May (born 1876); John William (1880-1882); Eva Annie (1882-1940); Florence Emily (1884-1977); Edwin Ivan (1886-1952); Dorothy Eleanor (1888-1892); Doris Louise (born 1895).
Between 1895 and 1901, the family moved from Kidderminster to Birmingham. In 1901, they were living in Deritend and, by 1911, had moved to Balsall Heath, where they seem to have remained until at least the 1920s. The local connection is that Norman was a member of Copt Heath Golf Club, and is recorded on the club's roll of honour.
Norman was listed as an engineering apprentice in 1911 but the following year, aged 19, he emigrated to Canada with the intention of pursuing a career in farming. He seems to have set sail on 4th September 1912 from Bristol for Quebec aboard the Royal George. In Canada, he joined the militia and enlisted in the Canadian Infantry on 1st September 1915, giving his age as 22 years and four months.
He was killed in action during the Battle of Vimy and, having no known grave, is commemorated on the Vimy Memorial.
Lucien Herbert Higgs was born in Schaerbeek, Brussels on 21st March 1892 to a British father – Herbert James Higgs, born in Bristol in 1855 – and his Belgian wife, Florentine Augusta Victorine Therese (née Benoit), known as Flore, who was born in Antwerp c. 1873. Some official records give Lucien's name as Lucien John Halbert Higgs. It seems that he had two younger siblings – André and Simone.
Herbert managed to get his son out of Belgium in December 1914, and then followed on later. On 20th January 1915, giving his home address as 16 Royal Park, Clivedon, Bristol, Lucien joined the 19th Division Signal company, Royal Engineers as a Pioneer. (no. 54366). He was promoted to the rank of Corporal the following day. On enlisting, he gave his occupation as an importer/exporter and motorcycle mechanic. He first entered a Theatre of War on 19th July 1915 and was a despatch rider in France for almost two years, returning to England on 15th March 1917 to take up a commission.
By 1917, his father, Herbert, had set up home at Lansdowne, St Bernards Road, Olton, after apparently residing in Alvechurch (according to a letter he wrote to The Globe, in September 1915).
In April 1917, Lucien Higgs was transferred to the Royal Flying Corps and, after training at the School of Military Aeronautics (SMA) Reading, was commissioned Temporary Second Lieutenant on probation on Friday 1st June 1917 and transferred to No. 5 Training Squadron at Castle Bromwich. He spent the weekend of 2nd/3rd June at the family home in Olton, leaving on the morning of Monday 4th June to take up duty at Castle Bromwich. On Friday 8th June, after only three hours and 15 minutes of dual flying experience, he made his first solo flight, taking off from Castle Bromwich in a Maurice Farman S.11 Shorthorn A6897.
It seems that he got lost. He had only had 15 minutes of fuel left when 50 miles from base and he tried to land in a field near Blisworth, Northamptonshire. The Northampton Mercury 15 June 1917 included the report of an eye witness to the crash, Edwin Thomas Freestone, a carpenter, who described how just before noon on Friday 8th June:
he noticed an aeroplane flying low at Blisworth. It seemed to him to be in control, and to be about to land. It planed down gradually and appeared to settle nicely. Then it seemed to stop suddenly, and to turn a complete somersault. He saw Lieut Higgs fall out, and with others went to render assistance. The aeroplane was a wreck and Lieut Higgs lay under the wire between the tail of the machine and the engine. He was taken to the railway station, a quarter of a mile away, and a special train was obtained to take him to Northampton. The accident took place in a clover field, and witness thought the clover, a very fine crop, clogged the wheels and overturned the aeroplane
His instructor thought that he had landed downhill and with a following wind. Lieutenant Higgs suffered a fractured skull and died in Northampton Hospital. Official reports give his date of death as 8th June, although some newspaper reports indicated that he died early on Saturday 9th June. A telegram sent to his family on 9th June informs them that he had died in hospital on the previous night.
He is buried in the churchyard at St Mary & St Margaret's Church, Castle Bromwich, with a private gravestone in the form of a large cross, rather than the usual military pattern headstone.
He is not commemorated on the Olton war memorial, presumably because the family had moved from the area by the time the war memorial was erected. Lucien's father died, aged 74, in Brussels in 1929, although his home address was listed as Fox Hollies Road, Birmingham.
If you have any further information on either of these men, please let us know.
Heritage & Local Studies Librarian
tel.: 0121 704 6977
email: email@example.com


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A big, big launch, and a new name, and logo to boot. Liverpool Victoria were a company in crisis Despite being in business for over 100 years, unprompted awareness hovered around zero. And they were only making sales by drastically undercutting the market. Massive losses were adding up. Oops.
So, we rename it LV, make the "V" a heart shape, and use the big green heart icon to brand the idea that people want to insure the things they "LV".
Within 4 years, they are in the top 3, they are in profit, and they are in possession of an IPA Effectiveness Award. Lovely.


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Each of the strings of letters is a clue in which a transformation has been applied to the words and the spaces have been removed. It is natural to apply that same transformation to the answer to each clue; in other puzzles with modified clues like this, the modified answers often fit into a category, but in this puzzle the resulting strings are not recognizable as words.
Each of the modified answers fits into exactly one of the columns so that the given letter is correct. This creates a dropquote, a puzzle in which the solver must rearrange the letters into the white squares below to create words reading across. In this case, the "words" are all brands of chewing gum, though each is missing one letter.
The gums are as follows:
The missing letters, in order, spell BRING US GUM DROPS. When a team does so, they are given a handout with the dropquote shown below:
This is a standard dropquote with no gimmicks, yielding the solution below:
The message reads "FIRST NAMES OF FOURTH AND SECOND CHARACTERS TO SPEAK IN THEMATIC EPISODE OF SEINFELD." The Seinfeld episode relevant to this puzzle's theme is "The Gum," in which the fourth and second characters to speak are Lloyd Braun and George Costanza respectively. The answer to this puzzle is LLOYD GEORGE.


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About Us
The idea for Susie B's Gluten-Free baked goods came from my personal dietary restrictions and from my family that loved to be my test market. In 2003, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease (an allergy to wheat products) and quickly learned that even a trace of wheat in food would turn into flu-like symptoms that lasted up to two weeks for me. After experiencing being "glutened" over the years by even the smallest trace of a wheat product, my kitchen became 100% gluten-free (GF).
Starting in 2003 with the absence of tasty GF desserts on the shelves, my quest became to create delicious, GF desserts, especially that my twin boys—now 26, so no longer boys!—and their friends would enjoy! Over countless family gatherings, my family members (both gluten and non-gluten) became the best critics and helped me tweak recipes to the perfect taste.
Fast-forward to 2020: my niece decided it was time for me to share my desserts with others, so she helped me create Susie B's. Love her! Now, we are thrilled to share our family's favorite desserts with you!
Even more exciting, my mother, at the age of 79, decided to start her own company and be a first-time entrepreneur with me. You can check out her amazing children's subscription book boxes on the Tales & Treasures website.
Bon Appetit, but Gluten-Free Style,


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Title- The Leavers
Author- Lisa Ko
Published- May 2nd 2017
Genre- Contemporary, literary fiction
Length- 352 pages
Rating- 3.75/5
Synopsis (Goodreads)- One morning, Deming Guo's mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant named Polly, goes to her job at the nail salon and never comes home. No one can find any trace of her.
With his mother gone, eleven-year-old Deming is left with no one to care for him. He is eventually adopted by two white college professors who move him from the Bronx to a small town upstate. They rename him Daniel Wilkinson in their efforts to make him over into their version of an "all-American boy." But far away from all he's ever known, Daniel struggles to reconcile his new life with his mother's disappearance and the memories of the family and community he left behind.
Set in New York and China, The Leavers is a vivid and moving examination of borders and belonging. It's the story of how one boy comes into his own when everything he's loved has been taken away–and how a mother learns to live with the mistakes of her past.
Review- I received an ARC of this from the publisher so thank you to them.
Overall I did enjoy this book but it felt long and the end dragged a bit.
This isn't an action packed book by any means, instead it focuses on description. It is told from two view points, that of Deming/Daniel, and his mother. It covers both past and present in the US and China. Mostly the switch between characters and times was well done but there was one chapter where for a few (kindle) pages I didn't know who the narrator was supposed to be. The language however was always easy to understand and there was never too much information given at once, characters were introduced gradually etc so there was never any confusion about who was who.
The story is interesting, though as someone very keen on education I was a bit annoyed by Deming/Daniel. I felt like he was constantly making excuses for not working hard. Yes he had had some upsetting times but plenty of people have it much worse and still function very well. To me he seemed immature and lazy a lot of the time. I also felt that his mother's personality wasn't very consistent. Descriptions of various times in her life could easily have been about completely different people.
There are various "important" themes in this book, belonging, culture, roots, family etc. I imagine that will make it very appealing to a lot of people but I feel like there were a lot of stereotypes used so I'm not sure how realistic a lot of it is.
Overall I did enjoy the book, the story was interesting, but I just didn't have the sympathy for Deming/Daniel that I think you are supposed to. I would recommend this book though if you enjoy a lot of "story telling".


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Report: iPhone to get big Android camera feature, but not with iPhone 12
While all eyes are on the upcoming iPhone 12, reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has detailed some of Apple's plans for big camera upgrades coming in the future.
As reported by 9to5Mac, Apple could be set to include a periscope camera lens on an iPhone coming out in 2022 with parts coming from South Korean lens supplier Semco. If that turns out to be true then the iPhone 14 (or whatever it's called) could finally catch up to Android rivals when it comes to zoom skills.
A Periscope lens is a great way of improving zoom levels from phones without adding too much bulk and we've seen this method used on big releases from the likes of Huawei, Samsung and Oppo. They work by reflecting light across a mirror and then into the sensor, rather than by having the lens directly above the sensor.
Related: What does the iPhone 12 look like?
Up to this point Apple hasn't really played about too much with zooming and focal lengths, aside from offering a 2x 'telephoto' option. Phones that have used this periscope method, like the Huawei P40 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, can get far closer to a subject without sacrificing as much detail as when digitally zoomed.
The same report also suggests that the iPhone 12 will utilise a different focussing method to give better autofocus. We expect Apple to release a whole bunch of new iPhones later this year alongside the release of iOS 14. Rumours suggest we could see four different sizes, some with 5G support and possible 120Hz displays. However that last point still seems to be up in the air at this stage.
Related: Best camera phones
The high-end Pro models are said to feature a LiDAR depth sensor similar to the one found on the iPad Pro alongside a triple camera setup. We're expecting these phones to come out, or at least be announced, in either September or October.


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Home > Alerts > United Kingdom > Aviva Investors completes £72.5 million social housing investment with Peaks & Plains Housing Trust
26 August 2022
Aviva Investors, the global asset management business of Aviva plc, announces it has completed a deal to provide £72.5 million in funding to Peaks & Plains Housing Trust ('Peaks & Plains'), a social landlord based in Macclesfield, Cheshire.
The agreement will enable Peaks & Plains, which manages over 5000 homes across East Cheshire and the High Peak, to continue delivering on its plans for communities across three local authority areas in Cheshire, as well as Derbyshire, High Peak in the East Midlands, and the North West of England.
It is the latest social housing investment made by Aviva Investors, which has also provided funding to housing associations including Wales & West, Coastal and Settle housing associations since the end of 2020.
"Social housing financing not only plays an increasingly vital role in providing affordable homes to communities, we believe it also offers investors attractive risk-adjusted and counter-cyclical returns compared to other sectors. As we continue to build our external client base, there has been a material uptick in the number of those who recognise the power of their investments to do good and create positive social outcomes whilst also capturing financial returns. The ability of social housing to provide solid cashflows whilst having a positive impact beyond our business and into communities makes it a compelling sector for us to increase our exposure to and to continue our support of."Source: Aviva Investors
June 5, 2023
Pionline | Avon Pension Fund moves $871 million into equities aligned with Paris Agreement
The Exelerating platform helps you to gain relevant insights into € 6,000+ billion of European institutional assets. We do this by tracking and analysing thousands of public sources of data.Learn more


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@article {1149,
title = {Prečo len (nutné) pravdy ako predpoklady deduktívnych úsudkov?},
journal = {Organon F},
volume = {20},
number = {2},
year = {2013},
pages = {75-97},
abstract = {The aim of the paper is to examine Tichý{\textquoteright}s understanding of the term {\textquotedblleft}assumption{\textquotedblright}. We show that Tichý distinguishes two approaches to inference: the one-dimensional view that treats inferences as a sequences of logical rules or axioms as well as hypotheses and their logical consequences; and the two-dimensional view specifying inference as a derivation of one entailment from (the set of) another entailment(s). It is claimed that Tichý is right in his critique of Meinong{\textquoteright}s concept of assumption as {\textquoteleft}assertion without conviction{\textquoteright}. Nevertheless, Tichý {\textendash} in addition to his logical concept of assumption {\textendash} uses, though unreflectively, also the epistemic concept of assumption. Henceforth, we claim that accepting Tichý{\textquoteright}s rejection of the epistemically hypothetical assumptions we couldn{\textquoteright}t use logic as an instrument for empirical knowledge enhancement. We believe, to the contrary, that the epistemic assumptions may become a basis for derivations and knowledge enhancement, even though they do not represent necessary truths.},
keywords = {Assumption, empirical truth, epistemical, hypotethical, inference, necessary truth},
url = {http://www.klemens.sav.sk/fiusav/doc/organon/prilohy/2013/2/75-97.pdf},
author = {Gah{\'e}r, Franti{\v s}ek and Bielik, Luk{\'a}{\v s}}


text: Robert Burns is a talented running back, but there's much more to him than that. He's very involved at his church, and he even has his own clothing line. He's been able to pursue all of his passions because of his great work ethic, but also because some friends, the Vega family, offered to help. In the process, they all became one family. Robert is verbally committed to the Miami Hurricanes.


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It's a question on many people's minds these days: Do I need a booster dose of a COVID vaccine?
The answer, like many aspects of this pandemic, is complicated. And in some ways, it depends on what we mean by "need." The three vaccines approved or authorized in the U.S. generally provide very good protection against severe disease and death from COVID. Yet some people, especially those who are immunocompromised, may not mount a strong response to the initial doses. And although there is not much evidence of waning immunity among young, healthy individuals, some reports from Israel, the U.K. and the U.S. suggest protection may erode somewhat over time, especially among the elderly. Breakthrough infections do happen even in healthy vaccinated people, though they are very unlikely to cause severe disease.
Officials in the U.S. and several other countries have now authorized booster shots for various subsets of their populations. As of October 20, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized a third dose of the Pfizer or Moderna shot for certain people who previously got those vaccines: those aged 65 or older, those aged 18 to 64 who have underlying health conditions that put them at risk of severe COVID and people in the latter age group who are at high risk of occupational exposure, such as health care workers and teachers. Earlier the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's director recommended the Pfizer booster shot for all three groups—overruling the agency's own advisory panel, which had not recommended people receive an extra dose based on their occupation. On October 14 an FDA advisory panel voted to recommend authorizing boosters for the Moderna vaccine. And on October 15 it voted to recommend a booster of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine for anyone aged 18 or older at least two months after the first dose. The FDA has also now authorized the J&J booster and allowed providers to mix and match different vaccines.
Yet many questions remain: Do people in high-exposure jobs really need a booster? Should we mix and match vaccines? And most importantly, what are we trying to achieve with a booster dose?
Scientific American posed these questions to Celine Gounder—an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at New York University and Bellevue Hospital in New York City, who was a member of the Biden-Harris transition's former COVID-19 Advisory Board—and to Alessandro Sette, a professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
Who needs a booster shot?
GOUNDER: It goes back to "What is it you're trying to accomplish? What is the outcome of interest?" I don't think we've actually agreed on that, which is why there's so much disagreement. Are you trying to prevent transmission? Are you trying to prevent breakthrough infection? Are you trying to prevent symptomatic disease? Are you trying to prevent severe disease, hospitalization, death? Because those will all have different policies.
If we're trying to prevent symptomatic disease, and we're trying to prevent transmission, that raises the question: Do our current vaccines do that? By giving a third dose, will you provide that level of protection indefinitely? Or will you see a waning of that protection over time? Unless you're planning to keep boosting over and over and over again, I think it's going to be very difficult to prevent all infections.
That said, do you need a perfect vaccine—a vaccine that perfectly prevents breakthrough infection and transmission—to prevent or to shrink the epidemic? No. I mean, your goal here is really to get the reproductive rate, R0, below one: in other words, one infected person transmits COVID on average to fewer than one other person. So if you can get to that point with even imperfect vaccines and other mitigation measures, eventually, you will suppress transmission to very low levels.
SETTE: Whether we need a booster shot has a very nuanced answer. It's not black-and-white. I tend to try to rephrase the question. "Need" is probably not the best way to phrase it. The question is, first of all: What data do we have that it is safe, or is it associated with greater side effects or greater risks? Second, does it do anything—both in terms of protection and in terms of immune response? Third, in what conditions is it recommended to deploy a booster? And last but not least, what are some of the other considerations? There is obviously a lot of debate regarding global vaccine supply worldwide and even within the U.S. Are there other groups that should receive a vaccine?
Are there any groups of people you think should get a third shot?
GOUNDER: I think there are data to support third doses or additional doses for people older than, depending on the study, 60 or 65. There are data for the highly immunocompromised—for example, organ transplant recipients, people who are on highly immunosuppressive medications, AIDS patients, and the like. And then there are good data for nursing home residents or other long-term care facility residents. For the first two of those groups, the elderly and the highly immunocompromised, this seems to be related to a poor immune response to the COVID vaccine up front. And this has been shown: there was a JAMA paper by Dorry Segev of Johns Hopkins University looking at organ transplant recipients that found that if you give two doses, many of them have zero response. A subsequent study found that with a third dose, you're finally able to elicit a response.
In the elderly, you have this phenomenon of immunosenescence, where, you know, just like your bones and joints at the age of 80 are not what they were at 20, similarly, your immune system at the age of 80 is not what it was at the age of 20. You just don't have as good of an immune response. And then if you have any waning of immunity over time, if you start off at a lower level, you know that that could put you at risk, right? So what we've seen (and it's not just out of Israel—we've seen this with the Public Health England data, with the Kaiser Permanente data and with others) is that there is waning of immunity, particularly protection against disease, and more severe outcomes among people older than 60 or 65. You don't see that reduction in the younger age groups, in terms of protection against severe disease.
SETTE: If someone is immunocompromised or very old, a booster is certainly highly advisable. But then it becomes a gradient. And when it gets to other categories, do these categories need it? Probably not. Would it be beneficial to have everybody have a third administration of a vaccine? It probably would be beneficial: it would cut down on the amount of virus that was circulating, it would cut down on the small amount of severe infection even in vaccinated people, and so forth. So, at some point, it becomes a risk-benefit calculation.
Do you agree with the CDC's decision to recommend boosters for people at high risk of exposure through their job, such as health care workers?
GOUNDER: I would argue: if you're going to say it's to keep health care workers on the job, then your recommendation should really be "You should get vaccinated," not "may get vaccinated." If you think they're truly higher-risk in terms of individual health—then maybe it makes more sense, because then that health care worker can weigh the risks and benefits and say, "Well, you know, I am somebody who's obese, so I should probably get that extra dose" or "Yeah, I'm young and healthy, and I don't need it." That's where I disagree with the CDC recommendation, because they seem to be saying it's really for the protection of the health care worker. And I don't think you can make that case based on the data.
What is your reaction to the FDA advisory panel's recommendations on Moderna boosters?
GOUNDER: It especially aligns with the CDC recommendations for boosters for the Pfizer vaccine. So from an operational, logistic, communications perspective, it certainly makes sense. Where I disagree is: I'm not entirely convinced that the categories eligible for boosters should have been quite so broad. The Moderna vaccine does seem to be holding up better than the Pfizer vaccine. And I'm not convinced that the Moderna vaccine needs to be authorized for as wide a range of people as was done for the Pfizer vaccine.
Honestly, I wasn't convinced about recommending boosters for people in high-risk occupations for the Pfizer vaccine either. I mean, I fall into that "high-risk" group as a health care worker, and I'm not currently planning on getting an additional dose. We're not seeing evidence that there's a higher risk of severe disease, hospitalization and death among health care workers or other "high-risk" groups if they have been fully vaccinated. So, you know, it feels like it's more about assuaging anxieties among some of those groups. And to me, that's not really data-driven.
Is the Moderna vaccine more effective than the other vaccines?
GOUNDER: I think the data we have would say that the Moderna vaccine appears to be more durable [meaning it produces longer-lasting immunity]. And so, you know, it may be that even older persons may not need a third dose if they got Moderna as their initial regimen.
SETTE: The data with Moderna that we have seen suggested a durable immune response for at least seven months' time. And certainly there are multiple reports that suggest that maybe the Moderna vaccine immunity may be dropping less in terms of antibodies over time. Again, it goes back to the thing that it is difficult to say "need" as opposed to "Does it help?" Another consideration that I heard being raised is that there is also a need for simplicity, to have a simple single message delivered to people that could potentially get a third shot. Otherwise it could get very complicated.
Should people mix and match vaccines?
GOUNDER: The National Institutes of Health has been doing studies of mix and match where they've literally done all nine potential combinations. So you start with Moderna, Pfizer, or J&J as your first vaccination, and then you follow up with an additional dose of one of the others. [Editor's Note: Results from the NIH study—which has not yet been peer-reviewed—suggested that a Moderna or Pfizer booster produced a stronger immune response (a higher increase in the number of antibodies) than an additional Johnson & Johnson shot in people who had previously received the J&J vaccine. The Moderna shot produced the largest increases in antibodies of all the vaccines tested, including when it was given as a booster for the Pfizer or J&J vaccine. The sample sizes were too small to make definitive comparisons, however. In addition, the Moderna booster used in the study was a full dose, whereas the company is applying for FDA authorization for a half-dose booster.]
I would say, based on those data, the recommendation I would make is that if you got Pfizer or Moderna, you should get a boost with either Pfizer or Moderna. And it doesn't need to be the exact same one: either mRNA can be used to boost you. And if you got Johnson & Johnson, similarly, you should get a boost with one of the two mRNA vaccines. [Editor's Note: This interview was conducted prior to the FDA advisory panel's vote to authorize a second dose of the J&J vaccine as a booster. The option of mixing vaccines was not voted on at this time.]
SETTE: There are data to suggest that, in some cases, mixing and matching may actually yield an even better response. On the other hand, the data that we have regarding safety and duration of immune responses are from one vaccine, and so then it becomes difficult to know "If I take vaccine A and boost with vaccine B, am I doing a good thing?" So to keep it uniform and simple has its own appeal.
What are you telling your own family and friends about whether they need a booster?
GOUNDER: My mom is the only one left in our family who's older—she is older than 65. She got Moderna. [Before the FDA advisory panel recommendation] what I told her was, "Let's wait and see—there's no rush right now." It's not going to really change her behavior. In terms of those of us in my family who are younger, we're waiting. None of us are getting extra doses right now.
Editor's Note (10/20/21): This article was edited after posting to include updated information about the FDA's decision to authorize Moderna and Johnson & Johnson boosters and to allow mixing and matching of vaccines. The text had previously been amended on October 15 include updated information about the FDA advisory panel's recommendation for boosters of the J&J vaccine.


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Terri white
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Terri white commented,
I have a fella that requires lots of oral sex. I love this man he can do any thing any way he want to or have it. But my mouth can get dry so no flavored gell what can I do


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Ranking of the top 10 most frequent number pairs for United Kingdom Lotto.
The top 10 pairs of numbers currently most present in the latest draws for United Kingdom Lotto. The numbers are processed with the maximum frequencies algorithm.
At United Kingdom Lotto, what is the most frequent pair that has come up in the last [TOTAL DRAWS] draws?
After the United Kingdom Lotto draw carried out Saturday, 03 June 2023, the [TOP FREQ COUPLE] ambo is the most frequent, having been [CD] times in the last [TOTAL DRAWS] draws.


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At Resort Lodging Company, you will find a wide range of condo rentals to accommodate your stay in Steamboat Springs. Many of their condos offer the convenience of ski in/ski out location and amenities such as outdoor hot tubs, panoramic mountain views, and easy access to the shops and restaurants of downtown.
For more information call 877-302-2628 or visit resortlodgingcompany.com
Locally owned and operated since 2007, Four Seasons Steamboat strives to ensure that your vacation is as unique as you are. From ski-in ski-out properties, to family homes, to luxury property rentals, they are here to provide you with any and all amenities you may need. With endless amounts of knowledge about Steamboat and all it has to offer, Four Seasons Steamboat is prepared to assist you with the vacation of a lifetime.
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That time I knew I was mindful
I have been meditating for about 2 ½ years–long enough to notice its benefits. In the past my temperament let anxiety creep in, morph into fear, and plant doomsday thoughts in my mind. Now, mindfulness alerts me when anxiety approaches, and I choose to get into a positive mindset. I have also noticed that I rarely take things personally or get upset. And when I do, I can snap out of it fairly easily.
While most of these emotional shifts I have noticed over time, I felt it very clearly during a recent incident. In late November, while waiting in stopped highway traffic, my 14-year old daughter and I were making the most out of boredom, listening to music and humming along. Suddenly a loud bang jolted both of us, as I helplessly watched my car ram into the car in front of me; we realized our car has been rear-ended. In the next few minutes, all three cars managed to pull over to the shoulder. The driver's side door was jammed, so both of us crawled into the back seat and got out through the back door.
Chances are we all have been in this situation. And I want to tell you how my mind processed it then.
There we were; three damaged cars lined up as the drivers figuring out how best to mend that situation and move on from there. The look on the face of the man rear ending my car already told me how sorry he was that this happened. We were still a bit shaken, and yet I felt no anger or anxiety at that time; in fact, all 3 of us heaved a sigh of relief knowing no one was hurt. The thoughts that crossed my mind were "this accident was one of many millions of permutations and combinations of chain reactions in our universe; and that, it wasn't designed to upset my daughter's and my lives; in fact, I felt gratitude that it didn't turn out to be far worse for all involved. At that time, the compassion for all of us involved was more gratifying than a feeling of anger and a sense of betrayal I felt in the past in similar situations.
I strongly believe that equanimous mindset I felt then is a direct benefit of meditation, and that energy not only guided me, it helped the entire situation to get better. Mindfulness has augmented clarity in life, uplifted love and compassion. I feel conscious of the whole to which I belong.


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Have you ever tried having a body massage? Whoa, I tell you…it's heavenly! Reliving all those stressed muscles with coaxing rubs and points will definitely put you in a trance. With the aromatic scent that makes your senses reel with intoxicating warmth, soothing sounds of nature that let your mind travel to calming destinations and the ambiance that relaxes you to absolute nothingness.
After all the daily household chores, whining tots, rushing from work, stuck in traffic,…just endless responsibilities, you have to get away before losing sane. Next time around, do not wait to be at wits end before thinking of this for it makes the mind healthy and your vigor back to youth.
In the spa, the whole body massage is just one treat amongst the many choices one can avail. The need to detoxify can also be dealt with, with various available treatments like sauna, seaweed scrubs, facial care…etc, etc. What matters for me is that you have a safe haven to spare you from getting the stress of life at an early stage of your life. Living is difficult, but it need not be all the time. Have a break, have a chillaxin day at the spa!


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By using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), brands can analyze data objectively, improving insights and generating actionable reports that can be used to make data-driven decisions. With AI and ML, these insights are more sophisticated and valuable to brands, allowing them to enhance and improve the customer journey.
The use of AI and ML continues to exponentially increase across a wide variety of industries. A 2021 O'Reilly report revealed that of those using AI, computer, electronics and technology industries were at the top of the list (17%), while financial services (15%), healthcare (9%) and education (8%) are the industries with the next-most significant use of AI. Let's take a look at the ways that AI and ML can enhance a brand's data strategy and improve the customer experience.
AI and ML Can Help to Overcome Data Challenges
There are many challenges that brands face today when it comes to efficiently accessing and using data to derive actionable insights. In fact, Dell's 2020 Digital Transformation Index revealed that data overload and "[the inability] to extract insights from data" is a rising barrier to digital transformation. Fortunately, AI and ML can help brands tame the data beast.
Siloed data is another challenge for brands today, especially when it comes to data analytics. A data silo is a repository of data that is controlled by one department and is isolated from the rest of the departments in a business. Although AI and ML are not magic pills that will eliminate the challenges of siloed data, they can provide brands with ways to minimize the effects of data silos.
"Siloed data is indeed one of the challenges of most organizations as AI depends on known data," said David Geffen, vice president at Glassbox, a digital experience analytics firm. "Naturally, AI's insights are much more detailed and actionable the more it has a holistic view of data — siloed data is a perpetual hurdle to this. This is why 45% of companies say the more they invest in data collection the less benefit they see — this is because it's not about more data, it's about 'non-siloed' data," said Geffen.
Although many brands try to solve the challenge of siloed data by aggregating even more data, this is not a viable solution. "Companies have the inclination to combat silos with higher volumes of data, hoping that it creates a 360-degree profile of the customer," said Geffen. "This is never achievable. Instead, you must account for siloes and provide AI/ML systems with the least-needed amount of data to make a decision. Research has found that we see diminishing gains after we provide AI systems with three-to-four data dimensions—beyond that, more data pieces achieve no greater benefit."
CF Su, vice president of machine learning at Hyperscience, an intelligent document processing platform (IDP) provider, told CMSWire that the symbiotic relationship between data, AI and ML is a force to be reckoned with in the enterprise ecosystem. "Increasingly, these algorithms are generating more accurate insights as the influx of data is digested. When thinking about data strategies, AI/ML can effectively process and improve the data fed into an organization's system," explained Su, who gave the example of IDP, which, backed by AI/ML, can interpret characters from unstructured data like PDFs, emails and messy handwriting, effectively turning unstructured information into actionable data that can be used for downstream decision-making. "Enterprises must tap into AI/ML tools that enable the easy processing of data without burdening employees, turning static numbers and information into usable insights," suggested Su.
Related Article: What's Next for Artificial Intelligence in Customer Experience?
AI Adds Speed, Convenience to Complex Processes
Leandro DalleMule, general manager at Planck, North America, an AI data platform provider, told CMSWire that his business has seen the most successful and powerful uses of AI in the insurance and finance industries where they need to be able to siphon large amounts of data into relevant insights not only quickly, but also accurately.
"These industries are complex but have customers that are demanding a better, faster experience," DalleMule said. "AI can take traditional long forms and applications that a customer would need to complete and shorten them to two questions, for example, a name and an address." DalleMule added that with answers to these two questions, AI generates the information that is needed to underwrite and price policies, which expedites not only internal processes but also the time the customer has to wait.
Although AI and ML have the ability to reduce the time a customer spends making a purchase, it's still a new technology that many brands have not yet fully accomplished. "With AI and ML, commercial insurance has become a real-time purchase — although many insurers are not there yet," said DalleMule. "Using only a business name and address, carriers can access a complete risk profile assembled and extrapolated from the company's digital footprint." DalleMule said these automated insights shorten application forms, eliminate human error, supplement omissions, and reduce additional customer back-and-forth.
The process of collecting and analyzing data accurately in a timely manner is often outside the scope of what humans are capable of — but AI and ML are options that are fully capable of such processes. "Outside of these industries, AI is the next-generation tool that is helping remove human error and aiding the decision-making process through actionable insights," said DalleMule. "What AI brings to the table is the efficient collection and analysis of multiple data sources which focuses the user's time on how to use that data to drive everything from customer experience to profitability growth."
With fears of a recession and a focus on reducing spend, many brands are turning to AI as a cost-effective solution. Sean Sollitto, co-founder of Relish, an enterprise application development firm, told CMSWire that AI and ML are an economical way for business leaders to assess and stop their spending to become more efficient with current inflation rates and an impending recession.
"Businesses must turn to quick-to-deploy, low-investment solutions to fill functionality gaps and maximize the value of enterprise IT investments," said Sollitto. His Relish InvoiceAI, for example, identifies errors and alerts the supplier to fix and resubmit the invoice, all without involvement from the AP team. "Using AI and machine learning through enterprise software solutions helps companies boost efficiency and maximize investment without the need for additional spending."
Related Article: Do Your Customers Trust Your AI?
Learning Opportunities
AI Improves the Customer Experience
Rather than looking at the individual interactions that a customer has with a brand, many brands are looking at an overview of the entire customer journey — a process that AI has simplified and enhanced. "AI has been a tremendous help in changing our entire structure of looking at customer behavior and the way we approach decision-making," said Geffen. "We now look at customers' digital experiences as a journey rather than a collection of pages they visited, which until AI/ML/NLP came into wide use was the only real indication you had of customer preferences and behavior."
As Geffen explained, AI points to how an experience on one page impacts a customer's behavior on the next — and on the next visits even days or months later. "It bridges gaps and helps us create more robust digital profiles."
Kathy Stares, executive vice president of Americas at Provenir, an AI-powered risk decision engine provider, told CMSWire that for customers, the name of the game is speed. "Consumers expect instant decisions, personalized offers and automated digital experiences. This requires deeper insights from more data sources to power a new level of decisioning, speed and accuracy," said Stares.
"If a business cannot onboard a customer quickly and easily, there's a good chance that customer will move on to a competitor." Stares believes that automation capabilities can minimize customer effort by leaning on technology to do the heavy lifting. "Ideally, this approach leverages automation to augment customer data with the additional information needed to perform robust compliance checks, identity verification and risk decisioning, all in real time."
Related Article: How AI Can Impact Your Marketing, Customer Experience
The Challenges of AI/ML
Although AI and ML can speed up many processes within the customer journey, too much data can cause a slowdown that is detrimental to the process. "Even with the least-viable amount of data points inputted to AI/ML, the sheer volume of insights can overwhelm entire systems and impacts performance," said Geffen. "It also impacts analysis time — the more data you're processing, the more time for analysis. Processing three customer journeys versus 800-plus customer journeys requires more time, and if insights are needed ASAP or pressure is coming from above in your organization, this may not be the time you budgeted for."
Skilled illiteracy shortfalls are also a big problem for brands that wish to use AI and ML as part of their data strategy. "Most business analysts are not familiar with using AI, interpreting its insight, and making those insights actionable. There are two schools of thought in this situation.
In one, it should be a requirement for analysts to upskill and reskill regularly, so they are not only able to solve data problems in front of them, but think long-term," said Geffen. "In another, many believe that the natural progression of AI is that it will simply do everything for analysts, like providing insights in a digestible way and clearly making them actionable. The truth is, both are important." Geffen reiterated that analysts need to have the baseline skills to interpret data and draw their own conclusions, while AI should also make its findings as clear as possible so that analysts can quickly implement or elaborate on them.
Final Thoughts on AI and ML
AI and ML can play an effective role in a brand's data strategy, providing a way to help manage vast amounts of data, enhancing the speed and convenience of customer interactions, providing a deeper understanding of where the customer is in their journey, and producing actionable insights that improve personalization and marketing suggestions.
By being aware of overstuffing AI with too much data, and upskilling and reskilling employees to bridge skilled illiteracy shortfalls, brands can improve and enhance their data strategy and the customer experience.


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Sex has always been a popular topic of conversation. That's why there are so many misconceptions floating around. But, whatever you do, don't believe these thirteen sex myths:
Women are sexual creatures, too. In fact, research suggests that both men and women have about the same sex drives.
2. Personal lubricant is for older folks
Personal lubricant can make sex feel way more amazing by reducing friction. Women of all ages enjoy incorporating lube into their sex lives.
3. Shoe size correlates with penis size
Unfortunately, no definitive proof exists for this myth. Research demonstrates that there is zero correlation between a man's shoe size and his penis length.
4. Wear double condoms to play it safe
If a man wears two condoms at once, they could rub against each other, causing tears. The result? Increased risk of STDs and pregnancy. Just stick with one condom at a time.
5. Female ejaculation doesn't exist
Over half of women experience either female ejaculation or squirting when they orgasm.
6. There are no risks involved with anal sex
While you won't get pregnant, you can still get STDs through anal sex, such as HIV, herpes, and HPV. That's why it's essential always to use protection.
7. Sex toys are for kinky people
Sex toys are actually more mainstream than you think, and they're the perfect way to spice up your routine. Vibrators can help you achieve an orgasm super quickly during penetrative sex.
8. Chocolate and oysters make you horny
There's no evidence that any of these foods affect your libido.
9. Women need clitoral stimulation
Women can orgasm in a variety of different ways, such as stimulating nipples, through anal or vaginal sex, and touching breasts.
10. Sex helps you lose weight
A half-hour lovemaking session only burns between 85 and 150 calories. On average, the increase in heart rate from sex is the equivalent of walking up two flights of stairs.
11. Every woman has a G-Spot
Researchers still haven't reached a consensus about whether G-Spots exist. While there's no physical spot located in the vagina, there are places where nerves and blood flow come together.
12. You shouldn't swallow semen
Some people think that swallowing sperm is unsanitary, but the human mouth is filled with way more bacteria than ejaculate is. Most sperm is sterile unless the man producing it has STDs.
13. You can't get STDs through oral sex
While it's slightly easier to contract STDs through vaginal sex, oral sex can transmit infections, such as herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia, HPV, and HIV. To be safe, use a condom or dental dam when going down.
Don't believe all the lies
When it comes to sex, knowledge is power. Remember always to get tested for STDs regularly, and never forget to use protection.
- "9 Crazy Sex Myths -- Busted!," Women's Health, August 28, 2014.
- "7 Sex Myths We Wish Would Die," Cosmopolitan, August 29, 2018.


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Romania road trip across the country
It was the summer of 2017 and the weather was perfect for a Romania road trip. We decided to take advantage of our last vacation days and the available accommodation vouchers, so we jumped in the car and went roaming across Romania for a week. Our tour started at the "Danube Boilers", stopping along the way at Orsova, Dubova, Timisoara, Deva, Hunedoara, Alba Iulia, Sovata, Praid, Sighisoara, Brasov and via Transfagarasan back to Constanta. As usual, the trip was planned on short notice and the accommodation was chosen from what was available through a travel agency.Continue reading "Romania road trip across the country"


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The leading online casinos offer their players the opportunity to play their favorite online casino games in live dealer mode. They do this by filming real live divisors working at gaming tables in a casino where they use a webcam that provides a live video feed to the players who sit at home and play the game.
Although online casinos for many years exist, live dealer casino games are fairly new and most online casinos started offering this. Only in recent years This was made possible when the internet connections were improved at home and in which video streaming technology has improved the live video feeds without delay and without too many problems can be. Streamed so far
The online casinos are continuing to expand their range of live dealer games, but there are still three casino games that are most popular among the live dealer casino games. Navigate to the section for live casino games at your favorite gambling website to see which games are offered. You have a direct view on the actions of the croupiers via a live HD stream. The croupiers are usually located in a studio somewhere in Latvia, Asia or South America because of its low labor costs. In the Amsterdam Casino (read our review here ) and Crown Casino, you can even play live dealer games with Dutch croupiers.


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Technology has changed the way businesses operate today. In fact, the more capable an organization is in embracing the technological advancements and making the most of them, the higher is their overall efficiency and productivity. There are also enough reasons … Continue reading
Gone are the days when each of the pages on a website needed to be updated manually. Nowadays, the ASP (Active Server Pages) allows dynamic website contents. In the earlier days, HTML (Hyper Link Test Protocol) was the standard language … Continue reading
Business these days is a competitive field. It is about making use of technology to the fullest. Also, when the technology is used effectively, it reaps a lot of benefits for any kind of business. We simply can't spend a … Continue reading
ASP .Net is basically Active Server Pages .Net and it was developed by the Microsoft. It is generally used in order to create the web pages and the various web based technologies. Being a member of the .Net framework, the … Continue reading
Can you deny the fact that cloud computing is the need of the hour? Organizations, irrespective of their sizes, have realized that cloud hosting has a number of benefits that cannot be ignored and the most important of this is … Continue reading
Why do developers get more requirements to convert desktop sites to mobile? It seems to be the era of smartphones and tablets. People prefer to get instant access to the internet and these devices serve the purpose. According to surveys, … Continue reading
Business in today's time and age is all about being educated enough to use technology. Effective use of technology implies your business is reaping maximum benefits from it. Technology is the need of the hour today. The reason being, it … Continue reading


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They are a comfort. They tell us someone took the time to fix us up. Sometimes, they come with a kiss.
Bandaid, we wish they could fix everything, don't we? We run around slapping them on every scrap and bruise like a three-year-old. But in reality, they are not always enough. They can hide the real problem.
Don't let a bandaid fix keep you from healing. But also, hold dear every kiss they come with.
©2022 Mary Grace van der Kroef
Photo sourced from unsplash.com


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Last season, the right tackle position was a game of musical chairs, with rookie Cody Ford rotating with veteran free agent signing Ty Nsekhe. Coming into training camp, it has been assumed that with more training and practice time Ford would be able to develop more consistency and stake his claim on the position full time. Things haven't exactly worked out that way, and that appears to have little to do with the play of the second-year tackle.
According to both The Athletic's Joe Buscaglia and Bills Wire's Nick Wojton, Ford has had a strong start to training camp, with both of them choosing to highlight Ford's play in recent reports. However, with the new restrictions on reporters being able to detail which positions or even which rotation players are receiving snaps at, it's difficult to tell if Ford has been stellar at right tackle or at right guard, in replacement of Jon Feliciano. Without that info, it's tough to know where things stand with the team's right tackle position.
Throwing even more pocket sand on the issue is Ty Nsekhe, who has been in and out of practice with some injuries, and Daryl Williams who, like Ford, has the ability to play tackle and guard. Williams was also recently highlighted by Joe B as an outstanding performer of early camp.
As the team's training camp goes on, Bills fans should rest assured that they are likely to receive a bit more clarity on this competition, with head coach Sean McDermott announcing that he wants to "see something unfold this week" with regard to Ford's ultimate utilization.


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The decision to have another little person was a contentious issue between us. Steve was happy with just one, I wanted a second. Two reasons. Firstly, I think being an only child can be very lonely when you are young and as you grow older. Secondly, a palm reader had told me I would only have one child and that I would have two husbands. I did not like those odds, so I decided to change them.
I remember the feeling of hoping to just survive through another day, of exhaustion and finally of hope. The plastic surgeon would say to me, "I promise by the time she is 10 life will be normal, you will have forgotten all of this. She will speak normally, look normal and by 18 she will not walk into a pub and ask for her tube to be filled up." He was right. of course….


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Integrate a Paper Cuts toolbelt into ubuntu-dev-tools
In order for the Hundred Paper Cuts project to stay healthy, it needs a constant flow of new bugs, several hundred each cycle, for people to work on. Making it easier to report paper cuts will help keep the reports flowing, and a desktop utility bundled with ubuntu-dev-tools could help with this.
A simple graphical tool that provides an interface for reporting new paper cuts, with fields customized for paper cut bug reports. ubuntu-bug send a lot of information that is not necessary for these kinds of problems.
An application picker (I think GTK3 has a pretty good one) that will list all the applications installed on the system that are covered by the paper cuts project. When the user chooses one, relevant data about the version of the app, installed plugins, etc, will be added to the report.
The ability to add multiple screenshots using Ubuntu's built-in screenshot utility, but the action will be initiated from the reporting utility, so screenshots are added directly to the report before it's sent.
When the report is send, it will be automatically filed against both the paper cuts project and the app in question, and the Paper Cuts Ninja team will automatically receive an email saying there's a new bug been reported.
These features will speed up the process of reporting new paper cuts - it should take only a few seconds from start to finish.
[mpt] See also <https:/


text: "I would've first heard of the New York Dolls when they were still pretty new, 1973, early Grade Nine. A friend pointed out a picture of them, probably in Creem magazine, guys in dresses, even freakier than Alice Cooper. No mention of their music. In fact, I wouldn't hear any of that for at least another five years. A mixtape heard at a punk rock party. I'd say they fit right in, but they didn't. They stood out. Like the Rolling Stones at their sleazy early 70s best, except harder, trashier, sleazier. Who cared what they were wearing?" (Philip Random)


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by Tonyaa Weathersbee
At Jefferson Street and Bellevue Avenue in Midtown, a banner of a beaming the Rev. Dr. Lawrence Turner, senior pastor of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, and his wife, Bridgett, greets passersby with the words "Love Without Limits."
From what I can tell, the church works to live up to that.
In April 2017, it welcomed hundreds of youths into its sanctuary to listen to Memphis officials tell them how they should love themselves enough to not kill their own futures.
Later in October, it hosted the first Moral Mondays table talk dinner as a prelude to the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. The people who packed the dining hall talked more than they ate — and most talked about doing more to embrace people struggling to eat, to pay rent and to raise children on low wages.
And those are just the gatherings I happened to attend.
But now, Mississippi Boulevard must channel the love that it uses to uplift the community toward itself — especially since the violence that it tries to fight with faith recently shattered its safe space.
The church's executive pastor, 36-year-old Brodes Perry, was fatally shot in his Collierville apartment last week, while his wife, Tabatha, was wounded.
According to Collierville police, the woman accused of killing Perry, Latoshia Daniels, 39, shot him several times as she yelled: "You broke my heart."
Since Perry's slaying, social media posts have dripped with salaciousness about alleged romantic involvements — compounding the tragedy not only for those whose lives he touched, but sparking bewilderment and a sense of betrayal.
So, the church must not only figure out how to comfort the congregants who are struggling with the pain of losing Perry, but how to ease the pain of seeing the life of a pastor they loved viewed through the prism of scandal.
To do that, Mississippi Boulevard seems to be sticking to what it knows.
Click here to read more.
Source: Memphis Commercial Appeal


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To mark my most recent birthday my wife gave me a Conway Stewart fountain pen. Conway Stewart & Co., Limited, the most venerable name in British fountain pens, was founded in London in 1905. During the First World War, their handcrafted pens were used extensively by soldiers writing home from the front. During the Second World War, Winston Churchill enlisted a Conway Stewart pen to sign important wartime documents. More recently, Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh were presented with Conway Stewart pens to commemorate their golden wedding anniversary. Known as the Wordsworth Shingle, my particular pen is a delight to hold and behold. And to a degree exceptional in this day and age, it affords what I would call the pleasures of inscription.
Foremost among those pleasures is the sensuousness of the experience: the sensation of the pen's nib pressing against the page. Whether light or heavy, that pressure and its attendant sensations can be felt when using any writing instrument, but with a fountain pen they are far more varied, nuanced, and subtle. I would liken them to what I feel in my left-hand fingers when pressing the nylon strings of the classical guitar, sensations that vary according to the placement of the finger-tips and the string I'm pressing down. Placing (or, rather, misplacing) the finger-tip between the frets requires more effort and creates more tension than placing it next to the fret. The bass strings, being metal-wound, also require greater effort. (more…)


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For me, makeup is much more than a way to look beautiful. It's completely transforming - it affects my mood, and the way I feel. Ever since I picked up my first makeup brush, I was transfixed. I took on every opportunity to get involved with beauty, from applying makeup at school plays to university fashion show
A wedding is a new chapter in a girl's life. And so, Charu believes in creating a makeup look for you that matches your special moment, which will last forever. From subtle to bold, she does it all. Drop by her studio and what follows next is hours of pure bliss. From Morning, Evening to Late Night weddings, she offers complete service for all that includes bridal makeup, hair styling and draping for your next chapter in the story waiting to be unveiled. She will be happy to meet you for a consultation prior to your wedding day.
Charu knows there are specific rules, when it comes to the products used and the application technique to make someone look fantastic on camera. If you are planning profile shots of company members and are looking for hair styling and makeup for the shoot, Charu can help. Whether you are preparing for an online shoot or print images, she can ensure that your team look their very best.Charu's approach is always to make her clients' look their best, while hiding flaws and accentuating each individual's features.
After the wedding, no day is as special as the engagement itself. Well known for her exceptional beauty skills, high-quality cosmetics and professional service, Charu Gumber's team is what you need to get for your engagement. She brings a fun, calming presence to your engagement day, while allowing you to relax and enjoy the pampering on your special occasion. High-end brand cosmetics and airbrush makeup technique is what Charu uses to bring out your natural beauty, without having to worry about makeup running, smearing or smudging. Contact Charu Gumber Studio if your engagement is coming up and make your appointment today.
If you have an oily face, suffer from birthmarks, dark spots or melasma, Charu is sure to make you look beautiful and glowing! She believes in light layering for the best, and that's why prefers using airbrush party makeup.Nothing tops airbrush makeup; it's light, long-lasting, never heavy or cakey and perfect for all skin tones and types. With Airbrush makeup, you don't need a touch-up.From bold eyes to subtle undertones, Charu understands her client's needs and customizes the makeup so that every girl dressed at her studio looks class apart.
what clients say
For bookings and other queries , please feel free to contact on details below.
Phone : +91- 7838282840
Email : firstname.lastname@example.com


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Are you a dice goblin?
- We designed this dice bag to be larger than others at 10 inches across when laid flat, while still cinching up to a convenient size to carry around.
- Holds up to 10 standards sets of D&D Dice. That's 70 dice!
- This high quality dice pouch is made from very durable cowhide leather and microfiber.
Take a Closer Look
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A classically designed leather pouch with foil stamps on the front and back.
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Dice Jails exist for a reason. Find that lucky d20 with ease.
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Easily store 70 of your favorite dice and do it in style.
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Our leather pouches are foil stamped with logos to fit with any D&D Class.
We Love It
As with all of our DND accessories, we use these in our own campaigns. These pouches are the highest quality leather and microfiber that we could find. They should last you a lifetime.
Get them all and SAVE
If you're a true dice goblin, then we know you have more than 70 dice. Get yourself every style of pouch or share them with your friends so you can adventure in style.


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Over the past couple of weeks I've appeared as a guest on two podcasts. The first is Historically thinking, a podcast maintained by Al Zambone, a historian of the colonial American South and professor in the history department of Augustana College. I was visiting the fair quad cities on a short AIA lecture tour. You can see the talk I gave at Augustana here.
The second is Caraheard, the podcast of my friends and fellow EKAS alumni, Bill Caraher and Richard Rothaus. I've embedded the Caraheard podcast but make sure to check out the show notes for many explanatory notes and references.