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Felicia Browne was the first British subject to die in the Spanish Civil War. An accomplished sculptress and artist she was active in the communist party. On vacation in Barcelona in July,1936 when the General's rose in opposition to the Republic, she, without hesitation, and fending off considerable discouragement from friends and party officials, joined a communist militia. On the 25th of August, 1936 Felicia was killed in action on the Aragon Front, part of a band of raiders that attempted to dynamite a Facist munitions train. She was 32 years old. Unfortunately very little other than these facts are available on the web. I cannot even find a photo. Above left is one of her sketches; above right we have a photo of her mother British stage actress Edith Johnston. From Felicia's obit:
The newspapers can be relied upon to make capital out of the fact that she was a woman, and she was the last person to wish to lay any undue stress upon the significance of this fact. But it has significance. She had it in her to represent the very best type of the new woman, but the kind of upbringing to which she was automatically subjected and and the forces with which she had to compete in a society where commercial values are preeminent, seriously and unnecessarily delayed her in harmonising all the remarkable powers within her.
She had most of the best human characteristics, but she conceived her own variety more as a source of opposition than of enjoyment. She was without guile, duplicity or vanity; painfully truthful and honest, immensely kind and generous, completely humane, loving any aspect of livingness, and as capable of enormous humour as she was deeply serious. She was gifted at every craft that she tried, a witty letter-writer, an amusing cartoonist, a vital and interesting companion, and socially much too gracious to belong credibly to the twentieth century. She was enormously well read, with a literary visual capacity which would have made her an excellent illustrator, particularly of Dante and Kafka, by whose strange and elaborate cosmogonies she became fascinated in the last year. She loved and appreciated good music and poetry, and whenever she got it, good food and drink - though materially she was remarkably careless and hopelessly generous.
But if her fighting was the expression of her deeply conscientious but less happy side, at least she had intellectual faith in the future. And she found happiness at the end, as far as one can judge from her letters, in a real sense of comradeship with her fellow militiamen. Intellectually she was quite clear about what was necessary for the next few years other life. In a letter to a friend written just before she went to Spain she said, 'You say I am escaping and evading things by not painting or making sculpture. If there is no painting or sculpture to be made, I cannot make it. I can only make out of what is valid and urgent to me. If painting or sculpture were more valid or urgent to me than the earthquake which is happening in the revolution, or if these two were reconciled so that the demands of the one didn't conflict (in time, even, or concentration) with the demands of the other, I should paint or make sculpture.'


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Just a quick blog post tonight to let you know about a presentation and run I am doing next March up north in Todmorden, West Yorkshire. It was back in April at the TORQ weekend, that took place in Shropshire, when I met John Lloyd from Cannonball Events. Recently he approached me to see if I would be interested in doing a Performance Enhancement Presentation on my trail running ideas, to the trail running community up north. No doubt as you are probably aware from the length of my blog posts, I do enjoy sharing my ideas, so I agreed to travel up in exchange for some good friendly northern hospitality and of course, a reasonably lengthy trail run with a group of runners.
So on Saturday 8th March commencing in the morning there is a 22 mile run along the Calderdale Way, part of the Calderdale Way Ultra race route. Then later that day at 6:30pm, as described by John from Cannonball Events, there is "An Evening with Stuart Mills". Sounds a bit like a BBC Evening with a Famous Singer TV show! Don't worry, I definitely won't be singing!
The image below is from the fancy flyer that John has produced.
Click the following link: http://www.cannonballevents.co.uk/specialevents.php to find out further information. It should be a great night, as well as an excellent run at a pretty leisurely pace.
Just one more tiny bit of news tonight. I was recently approached by a Mum whose son is a trail runner who enjoys reading my UltraStu blog and finds the material aids his running. She asked me if it was possible if I could share my racing, training and coaching experience in person with her son in conjunction with a weekend of trail running taking in the amazingly scenic countryside of East Sussex. Her plan was to give the Trail Running Weekend as a Christmas present to her son. I felt really 'honoured' in that running with me would be someone's Christmas present, so I produced a fancy voucher to mark the occasion.
I then thought maybe there are other people out there who have a keen trail runner friend, partner, son/daughter, or Mum/Dad and just don't know what to give them for Christmas. So if you like the idea of giving a Trail Running Weekend in East Sussex as a present, then simply zap me an e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com and we can discuss details. It wouldn't have to be the same format as the voucher below. Whatever you feel would be the most ideal Christmas present.
Anyway just a thought. Just one last point, although the Christmas present is Trail Running with me, it wouldn't actually be during the Christmas period, but some time during 2014. As I am commencing my summer training camp out in New Zealand next week. Yes, I am off to New Zealand for Christmas to catch up with family and friends, as well as planning to get a few fantastic hot sunny trail runs in.
Hopefully, I will be publishing a few posts from New Zealand, but just in case I am too busy doing loads of running, have a great Christmas.
PS Just one last mention. No doubt many of you are probably planning your races for 2014 around now. If you are looking for an off-road run that takes is a variety of terrain and scenery, including the Ashdown Forest, designated as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, then checkout the Weald Challenge Trail Races, that take place in East Sussex on Sunday 25th May, 2014. The Weald Challenge Trail Races consist of a 50km Ultra Trail, a Trail Marathon, and a Trail Half Marathon. Go to the race website for further information and to enter online: http://www.trailrunningsussex.co.uk/trailraces.html

subset: commoncrawl


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Amsterdam City Camping at its BestTravel Tips — By Scott Roane on June 22, 2011 at 5:03 pm
There are just two campsites close to Amsterdam, so you'd do well to be organized and book at least a few weeks ahead, particularly for a weekend. Since the global recession struck a couple of years ago, it's the first time in many years that both campsites have been forced to regularly turn people away during the peak summer months. Both sites claim to cater for a mix of customers, but from personal experience the majority tend to be younger Dutch teenagers in large groups or backpackers. The staff does try and take this into account and keep the families apart.
Of Amsterdam's two campsites, this is the closest s to the City Centre. Located around two kilometres from Amsterdam's Central Station, it can be reached by busses 32 or 33 which run all day until around midnight. Alternatively, by taking the free ferry which runs day and night from behind central station, it's about a 20 minute walk.
They offer places for camper vans and tents and they also have a number of small wooden huts with two sets of bunk beds and one large hut for groups. There is a small store offering the normal campsite fair and a restaurant offering a basic range of fast food and sandwiches.
Unaccompanied teenagers from the age of 16 are allowed.
This site is located around 15 minutes bus journey from Amsterdam's Central station, or a 1 hour walk. It's in a picturesque location on a small Island in the IJmeer. However it is close to quite a busy road, so you will hear some traffic in the distance.
They offer places for tents and campers and also have very cute wagonnettes. These are cosy 'wagons on wheels' equipped with bunk beds, table, chairs, electricity points and heater with private thermostat. Bedding is included. Each wagonette has its private little covered veranda, so you can sit outside – even when it rains.
A great and cheap alternative to a hostel or hotel is choosing to stay in one of their cabins. These offer a simple, clean and cosy space with bunk beds, table, chairs, electricity points, and central heating and bed linen included.
While it's not so close to the city, there is a lot to do in the neighbourhood, including some good restaurants, such as Pompstation, kayak rental, and Blijburg beach. It's also an excellent starting point for bike tours in the Waterland above Amsterdam.
Oh, and they're open all year if you dare to battle with freezing Dutch winters!


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Legend Financial Advisors, Inc.® (Legend) is a Non-Commission, Fee-Only, Fiduciary U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission registered investment advisory firm with its headquarters located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Legend and its Award-Winning Advisors are Fiduciaries who are required by law to act in their clients' best interests at all times.
Legend offers the following Advisory Services:
The staff at Legend recognizes that along with financial success comes increased responsibilities and complexity. Legend can examine the critical interdependencies among investments, income and estate taxes, income for retirement, daily expense management, as well as business counseling and philanthropic decision-making, if desired by the client. Legend recognizes that its clients have unique financial needs and goals that change over time. Legend can demonstrate the short-term as well as long-term benefits of Financial Planning for the numerous aspects of a client's financial situation with the goal of improved decision-making.
Clients who utilize Legend's Personalized Wealth Management Services are typically seeking unbiased advice with tailored recommendations, improved after-tax results especially with regard to investments, assistance with regard to the transfer of wealth to the next generation, protection of client wealth, and reduction of time spent overseeing client affairs and assistance with coordinating their financial matters among a multitude of other financial professionals.
Legend takes pride in addressing each client's situation on an individual basis. This includes committing to establishing trust, respect, and a lasting partnership with clients. Long-term client relationships as advisors, partners, and in many cases friends are deeply valued.
Legend differs from its competitors by working as a team for its clients, providing personalized attention every step of the way. In most firms, each advisor has his or her own set of clients. While any two advisors in those firms may operate in a somewhat similar manner, clients almost always receive two different levels of service as well as quality of advice. At Legend, all clients are firm clients and are counseled in the same manner and receive the same high-quality level of advice and hands-on, courteous service. Each of Legend's advisory team members work on the clients' behalf in a concerted manner thereby ensuring the quality of advice and level of service being provided.
Also, Legend assists its clients with the time-consuming task of managing their financial affairs among multiple financial professionals in the fields of accounting, banking, insurance and/or legal matters. If a client does not work with a financial professional in a particular area, Legend will recommend a prescreened professional who can assist in that specialty.
Legend further differs from competitors in that personalized solutions are created for its clients.
For example, at most competitor firms, an investment asset with low cost basis often would be sold regardless of income tax ramifications and generally without a discussion with the client.
At Legend, an analysis of all client investment securities as well as the applicable income tax ramifications of each position would first take place and then be discussed at length with the client. A tax-efficient investment strategy would then be developed and agreed upon. If a particular security no longer fits the portfolio, a strategy would be developed to liquidate it if income taxes can be minimized.
Legend constantly searches for new investment management strategies to potentially maximize our clients' results. Furthermore, income tax efficiency both from an investment as well as an asset location (whether or not inside of an IRA or retirement account) standpoint is continually reassessed.
Legend is widely recognized as one of the nation's leading financial advisory firms and serves clients nationwide. Legend's financial advisory team has been selected a total of 15 times to Worth magazine's list of "The Best Financial Advisors in America", 29 times to Medical Economics magazine's list of "The Best Financial Advisors for Doctors in America", 15 times to Dental Products Report magazine's list of the "Best Financial Advisors for Dentists in America", twice to Mutual Funds magazine's list of "The 100 Great Financial Planners in America" and once by Barron's as one of "The Top 100 Independent Financial Advisors". In addition, Legend's founder, Louis P. Stanasolovich, CFP®, was selected by Financial Planning magazine as their inaugural "Wealth Creator Award" winner in 2010 who has made the most significant contributions to best practices for portfolio management.
Furthermore, Mr. Stanasolovich has also been named to Investment Advisor magazine's "IA 25" list three times, ranking the 25 most influential people in and around the financial advisory profession, as well as being named by Financial Planning magazine as one of the country's "Movers & Shakers", recognizing the top individuals who have done the most to advance the financial advisory profession.
Legend was named twice by Wealth Manager magazine as one of the country's "Top Wealth Managers".
Legend ranked two consecutive years (2010 and 2011) on Inc. magazine's Inc. 5,000 list of the fastest-growing, private companies in America.
The Pittsburgh Business Times previously has included Legend three times in its annual "Pittsburgh 100" list, ranking the area's fastest-growing, privately held companies. The Pittsburgh Business Times has also named Legend to its annual "Best Places to Work in Western Pennsylvania" list 10 times in the following years:
Legend was a finalist for the Pittsburgh Human Resources Association's "People Do Matter" award for the Learning and Development category in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2014.
In 2004 Legend's founder, president, and CEO, Louis P. Stanasolovich, CFP® was named one of only 15 people by Fortune Small Business magazine and Winning Workplaces as one of "America's Best Bosses." Mr. Stanasolovich was also selected by Smart Business Pittsburgh as a "Pacesetter" for three consecutive years (2008, 2009, and 2010), an award that recognizes outstanding and innovative business and community leaders who have made a significant impact on the region and its future. In 2009, he was selected as a nominee for the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year" award for the Upstate New York, Western Pennsylvania, and West Virginia region.
In 2013, James J. Holtzman, CFP® was named as one of the Pittsburgh Business Times' Fast Trackers for his impact on the business and social climate within the Pittsburgh region.
Legend's Diane M. Pearson, CFP®, PPC™, CDFA® has been selected as one of "Pennsylvania's Best 50 Women in Business" in 2006 by The Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development. Ms. Pearson has also been selected twice as the Pittsburgh Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners' (NAWBO) "Woman Business Owner of the Year" (2004 and 2011). In 2007, Diane was honored by NAWBO as the "Woman Business Professional Associate of the Year." In 2005, Diane was named as one of the Pittsburgh Business Times' Fast Trackers for her impact on the business and social climate within the Pittsburgh region.
Legend's mission is to achieve an unequaled standard of excellence in the financial advisory profession by providing personalized value-added services to clients thereby becoming indispensable by assisting them in making informed, intelligent financial decisions so that they can spend their time focusing on matters that mean the most to them. A client's peace of mind is the staff at Legend's greatest reward.


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Outside the fellowship programs addressed to individuals, the Belgian American Educational Foundation (B.A.E.F.) has also given institutional assistance during the last 27 years through Special Programs. Funding for the Special Programs is entirely derived from outside sources.
In April 1979 the Board approved that B.A.E.F. would lend its support towards raising funds for the creation of a "Belgian Room" at International House in New York City, resulting in a donation of $8,000. A second room was established as the "Solvay Room" at International House between 1989 and 1990, through a donation of $15,000.
In 1990 the Foundation assisted in the Belgian fundraising campaign for the Centennial Celebration of Dwight Eisenhower and during 1992-95.
The B.A.E.F. assisted in the campaign for the new Museum of Modern Art in Brussels and in the 1995-1996 fundraising by the Friends of the van Buuren Museum in Brussels.
In 1987-1988, the B.A.E.F. sponsored in part the production of a movie about the Belgian painter Jan Cox, a long-time teacher at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
During 1991-95 the B.A.E.F. gave support to the European Foundation Center in Brussels and the Foundation Center in New York.
During the years 1992-2006, B.A.E.F. assisted in the fundraising for the scientific research programs of the two Universities of Brussels (U.L.B. and V.U.B.).
During 2004-2006, B.A.E.F. assisted in the fundraising for the scientific research programs of the University of Leuven (K.U.Leuven).
In 2006, B.A.E.F. cosponsors with the U.S. Embassy in Brussels the event "Remembering Herbert Hoover" celebrating the work of Herbert Hoover during World War I.
back to history


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Our Toy Store offers the top and the hottest toys for kids learning and development at the lowest prices. We made it easy for you to shop for the latest top toys and games by various categories, age, brands and characters. Buy toys online with us. You can find here the best toy deals online for children of all ages - for boys, for girls, babies, and toddlers. Please check our favorite toy categories such as Learning and Education, Electronic and Construction & Building sections among many others for the high quality and safe playing experience to stimulate children's communication, creativity, problem solving, music, science and many other skills.
Questions about order, payment, or shipping status?
International: 1-206-266-2992


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Luxion KeyShot Pro 7 Crack with Keygen Free [Mac + Windows]
Luxion KeyShot Pro 7 Keygen Luxion KeyShot Pro 7 Crack with Activation Key is the most popular software for graphics designing. You can use this software for 3D modeling, rendering, and 3D animations. It helps to create HD quality 3D videos and animated cartoons. Its advanced graphical tools will provide feature to create stunning 3D […]Read More


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Supporting you
Thank you for submitting your information. To complete the registration process, use the Paypal button for payment.
Your place in this class can't be held past 24 hours without payment.
When both registration information and payment are sent, you'll receive an email confirming your class registration with more information about Natural Birth Series.
Class payment $185
The most experienced group of Doulas in Louisiana.
2016 Birth Help. All rights Reserved. Web by Wes Kennison


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2 Pack Little Girls Blue
Vcx LtdThe long-awaited, original, uncut and digitally remastered classic. it is a fresh take on the boarding school theme. However, the girls still engage in lots of sexual shenanigans with each other and their college faculty and staff. In volume 2, they are transplanted to a summer camp full of randy counselors and shady thickets perfect for brushing up on human anatomy and comparative sexual analysis.


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|Doing really good stuff.
History of Plymouth United Church of Christ
Plymouth United Church of Christ is a local congregation of the United Church of Christ (UCC), which is descended directly from the Pilgrim and Puritan settlers. Read more.
The Early Years
The church from which Plymouth takes its name began in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1892 as a Congregationalist church. One year later, the Plymouth Congregational church building was erected at the corner of Franklin and Dolbee streets in Grand Rapids. In 1928, the Congregationalists, believing in the unity and dignity of all people under God, united with the "Christian" denomination. Read more.
Plymouth and the UCC in the 1950s
Jump to 1955. A new congregation was forming in the growing southeast section of the Grand Rapids metropolitan community. Named "Bowen Congregational Church," it first met in the Paris Township Hall. Around that same time, Plymouth was looking to move into an area of residential growth. The two churches decided to combine their efforts. The Plymouth church building was sold and the church disbanded so that all could start together as the new Plymouth in its present location. The two churches incorporated in 1957 as "Plymouth Congregational Church."
That same year, the United Church of Christ came into being as a merger of the Congregational Christian Church (to which Plymouth belonged) and the Evangelical and Reformed Church (itself a 1934 merger of the German Evangelical Church and the German Reformed Church). Votes by local Congregational churches to join the merger would follow within the next few years. Plymouth is one of 25 UCC churches that marked its 50th anniversary along with the UCC. Read more.
Plymouth in the 21st Century
In 2011, following a vote of the congregation, Plymouth UCC filed a Certificate of Assumed Name with the State of Michigan in order to officially use the name "Plymouth United Church of Christ." This was done to lessen confusion about Plymouth's denominational affiliation and our understanding of what the church should be. Plymouth honors its Congregational foundation by retaining the legal identity of its old name, "Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ."
Phone: 616-455-4260
© 2012 to present Plymouth United Church of Christ (Plymouth UCC). All rights reserved. Web design by JabberDesign.


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Happy 80th, Robert Duvall! Yesterday Grauman's Chinese theater gave one of Hollywood's greatest utility players the ultimate gift by inviting him to leave his hand and footprints in its fabled forecourt.
American films of the '60s and '70s are unimaginable without the self-effacing Duvall, who vanishes into character like almost no one else with the possible exception of his drama-school roommate Gene Hackman.
Duvall was frightful and tender Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, star of Francis Ford Coppola's and George Lucas' early features (The Rain People and THX 1138), he originated the role of Ned Pepper opposite John Wayne in the first True Grit, was soft-spoken consiglieri Tom Hagen in The Godfather movies, the bombastic Sgt. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now ("I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"), cagey Dr. Watson in The Seven-Percent Solution, iron-fisted as The Great Santini, repentant in Tender Mercies (the Crazy Heart of the '80s), Gus Macrae in television's Lonesome Dove and the title figure in The Apostle. Not to mention his great supporting performances in films like The Paper, Phenomenon and A Civil Action.
Since Duvall won't get an Oscar nomination this year for Get Low, a deadpan film about a recluse who organizes his own funeral while still alive, it's nice to see him get recognition for his remarkable body of work.
Tom Hagen is my favorite Duvall. Yours?


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Football season is upon us and Basketball season is about to start. Excellent. Muuuhahahahaha. I love sports: The tension, the drama, the aspirational aspect. Not to mention the excellent cardiovascular fitness benefits. As a kid, I was the definition of nerdy bookworm. Yet contrary to the stereotype, I was physically coordinated and a bit of … Continue reading
Filed under Asian American …
To be or not to be, Jello.
What if I wasn't Asian? I suppose that this is about as useful as contemplating one's existence as jello, but I have often wondered just that… what if I was born blonde and blue-eyed. And then I think, 'Why do I immediately imagine myself as an Aryan girl? Why not an African-American boy, or an … Continue reading
The Thing Is…
I have been tossing this around and around in my mind and the thing I find completely BOGGLING is: Has Mr. Steven Sater, the Book writer and lyricist of "The Nightingale" at La Jolla Playhouse, thought about the irony of the casting controversy in relation to THE STORY AND MORAL of "The Nightingale" that he … Continue reading
In a place called Naboo, or mythical China.
So. "The Nightingale." Where do I begin? I am an alum of the MFA program at UCSD/ La Jolla Playhouse. I have many fond memories and a certain allegiance. You could call it a filial love for the place where my inner artist was trained and nourished. And so it was with great trepidation that … Continue reading


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After a long wait, I am finally able to post the link to the PowerPoint I presented at Language World in Oxford on the 11th of April.
I apologise to anyone who tried to access this earlier - I have been struggling with a blog issue and it has only just been resolved, despite my best efforts!
Language World was a fantastic event - it was lovely to catch up with some familiar faces (and friends from the North!) and to meet new people, all of whom were equally passionate about language teaching. Being a member of ALL allows you to meet like-minded people to discuss the issues that really matter! I hope to see some of you again next year! Download exciting_events_for_more_motivation.ppt


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Guess who's ready for this Sunday's run!!!
Now we finally have couple singlets! Whoohoo!
So the Krimmy Couple will be running at this Sunday's Globe Run For Home. We haven't done ANYTHING athletic together (wait, except maybe that time we played basketball for 15 minutes at his camp before I said "Fuck it! You're cheating." LOL when I actually just suck at it and I got tired already). So I'm super excited about this. I'm even thinking of doing another video! ^____^


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My new book, Betrayal of Fools gave me cause me to re-examine the Georgia Guidestones. During my research, I stumbled upon a popular site called Van's Hardware Journal. It posted an anonymous message with some fascinating insights into the now famous cube that was strategically inserted above/right of the protocol that determines to reduce the world's population to 500,000,000. (Really?)
As usual, when Insiders behind the scenes wish to convey a message, they create a mystery, throw it out there, and allow those with a nose for such things to gnaw the bone. Mostly we lesser humans get it wrong, so after a while something happens to shift the junior detectives back onto the right track. Hidden in the information will be another glaring error. The Insiders toy with us – but we cannot resist a mystery.
Most people, apparently correctly, assumed that the MM on the cube represented Master Mason. I was pleased with the answer to JAM – Judicie Anno Mundi 'In judgment of the world' and the reversed date that had fooled almost all those who had followed the numbers on the cube – 8 16 2014. Van's Hardware offers us the following from his anonymous source:
People first assume this is a date of 8/16/2014. That's because they read the cube in the wrong direction. They are reading the cube spun clockwise. This is wrong. Remember the guidestones make a big deal out of Polaris. And viewed from Polaris the Earth turns counter-clockwise. The cube date read in this direction becomes: 8/14/2016
Polaris is, of course, the North Star, the navigational star – also known as the lode or guiding star – which suggests that what has been inscribed, literally cast in stone, on the Guidestones are the guiding principles of the Freemasonic New World Order.
And then, just when our anonymous source becomes interesting, he throws in the deliberate error! Freemasons hate that August day, he says:
The first true public enemy the Freemasons had was William Morgan. Long story short, this man had access to secret Freemason rituals and materials and planned to make them public. He planned to expose the Freemasons via a book called "Illustrations of Masonry, By One of the Fraternity Who Has Devoted Thirty Years to the Subject". He obtained a copyright for this particular book on August 14th, 1826. Shortly afterwards he was murdered by Freemasons. This led to the Morgan affair which led to the Antimasonic (sic) Party. To this very day, Freemasons loathe the date August 14th. They see it as the point at which society at large turned against them. What better day then, for the Freemasons to enact their revenge? To turn against society? And thus we have the date of the 2nd cube being: 8/14/2016.
That was incredibly weak, and I'm sure that Van still has the uneasy feeling that he has been taken for a ride.
Several years ago, I published Opus Dei on Amazon, and more recently re-published it in three parts on Kindle. In my novel, a world leader comes to power and, at the Jewish commemoration of Tisha B'av, he incites his supporters to kill Christians who are holding back the advances of society. Tisha B'av is a time of mourning for the Jewish nation; two Jewish temples have been destroyed on the 9th day of Av, and Christians are known as the temples of God. (1 Corinthians 3:16,17) Little temples in which the Spirit of God dwells. So what has all this got to do with the anonymous writer and his reasoning behind the date on the cube?
Just this. In 2016, Tisha B'av falls on 14th August and everything that these Insiders do is intended to damage and destroy the name of the God of the universe. God works within the feast dates of the Jewish nation. He ordained these dates as a perpetual memorial for his people. Our esteemed Insiders know this and deliberately use these dates to subvert the work of God. Yes, I do believe that the culling of the Georgia Guidestones will affect a great many more people than just Christians, but I can guarantee it will begin with them. The anti-Christian and anti-Jewish sentiment is so highly-charged now that it will only take a spark to ignite it.
Georgia Guidestones, Freemasonry and 'Judgment' almost certainly come together on Tisha B'av, 2016 – this time, apparently, it is cast in stone.


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Monday, June 19, 2017
6 Comments:
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Interesting/fascinating link to background information/history of ex-FBI director James Comey and his brother Pete...
James Comey's brother, Pete works for DLA Piper, a law firm representing "Crowdstrike" - the company hired by the FBI which prevented the FBI from examining DNC servers as well as representing the Clinton Global Initiative.
Peter Comey re-designed the FBI building (Breitbart 9/2016)
In January 2009, at the beginning of the Obama administration, Peter Comey became "a real estate and construction consultant" for Procon Consulting.
Procon Consulting's client list includes "FBI Headquarters Washington, DC."
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Two reports of same NY area jihadi wannabe - Binghamton area:
Miami Herald: Police caught him [Ramadan Abdullah] shoplifting. Then they found 16 [loaded] guns and 10,000 rounds of ammo (June 14, 2017)
Shoplifting bust leads to huge weapons cache, police say
"On Wednesday, police announced the charges: four felony counts of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a felony count of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and a misdemeanor count of fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property.
If convicted of the second-degree weapons charge, Abdullah could spend up to 15 years in prison. He remains held in the Broome County jail, awaiting further court action." . . . "None of the firearms were registered to Abdullah, according to Barnes, and that alone made it illegal for him to possess them.". . ."Search warrants were carried out on Abdullah's personal storage unit in the Town of Union, residence on Ackley Avenue in Johnson City, and a property in the City of Oneonta.
Among other items seized was a hardcover book with inside pages cut out to conceal a small handgun, as well as two bulletproof vests, .38-caliber ammunition and high-capacity ammunition feeding devices."
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Thursday, June 8, 2017
Bronx Man And Michigan Man Arrested For Terrorist Activities On Behalf Of Hizballah's Islamic Jihad Organization
ALI KOURANI and SAMER EL DEBEK, a/k/a "Samer Eldebek," were arrested on Thursday, June 1, 2017, on charges related to their alleged activities on behalf of Hizballah, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
At the direction of his Hizballah handlers, El Debek allegedly conducted missions in Panama to locate the U.S. and Israeli Embassies and to assess the vulnerabilities of the Panama Canal and ships in the Canal. Kourani allegedly conducted surveillance of potential targets in America, including military and law enforcement facilities in New York City.
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NYC: Muslim screaming "Allahu akbar" breaks into church, vows to "kill any Christians"
June 19, 2017 6:32 am By Robert Spencer
Don't be concerned. He was just a homeless guy. Don't be concerned. He was mentally ill. Don't be concerned. He was reacting to the bombing of his homeland. Don't be concerned. He was lashing out after the President marginalized him. What's that? The Islamic doctrine of jihad warfare against Christians and other non-Muslims? Oh, don't pay any attention to that. That's entirely irrelevant, in each and every case.
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Mind Boggling!
"A data analytics contractor employed by the Republican National Committee (RNC) left databases containing information on nearly 200 million potential voters exposed to the internet without security, allowing anyone who knew where to look to download it without a password.
"We take full responsibility for this situation," said the contractor, Deep Root Analytics, in a statement.
The databases were part of 25 terabytes of files contained in an Amazon cloud account that could be browsed without logging in. The leaky account was discovered by researcher Chris Vickery of the security firm UpGuard. The files have since been secured."
- said...
Germany: Police Powerless Against Middle Eastern Crime Gangs
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Introduction to the Semantic Web - RDF, RDFS, OWL and Ontologies — A 2 day course
This is a taught course covering Semantic Web concepts, technologies and applications. The emphasis is on providing an understanding of the various problems involved in building semantic web applications and how they have been addressed by RDF, RDFS and OWL.
The course also covers issues involved with knowledge engineering issues associated with Ontology building, and also Description Logics (DLs), how they can be used to represent rules and how reasoning engines can apply these rules.
The course will make use of Protege, Jena and Altova's XML Spy for demonstrations.
Attendees are expected to have some familiarity with XML. Please see our range of XML courses.
Courses in this subject are scheduled on an 'ad-hoc' basis.
We can arrange a course at our Carshalton centre or on customer site for any client wishing to send two or more delegates on the same event.
For courses at the Carshalton Centre the fee will be:
- £1600 + VAT for the first two delegates
- £700 + VAT for the third delegate
- £520 + VAT for the fourth delegate
- £200 + VAT for each additional delegate to a maximum of eight
On-site course fees are as above + expenses recharged at cost.
For a 1:1 course in Carshalton the fee is £1300 + VAT.
For a 1:1 on-site course the fee is £1300 + VAT + expenses recharged at cost.
Overview of the Semantic Web
- Information vs. knowledge
- Agency and reasoning
- Knowledge services
Overview of XML
- Notation and rules
- Namespaces
Resource Description Framework
- RDF triples
- RDF Semantic Network
- XML Syntax for RDF
- RDF containers
- RDF Knowledge Bases
- RDF Stores
- RDF Schema (RDFS)
- Using RDFS to construct vocabularies for particular domains
- Inheritance and hierarchies of classes
- Property restrictions
- Hierarchies of properties
- RDF Syntax for RDF Schema
- RDF instance declaration
Web Ontology Language (OWL)
- OWL family of languages (OWL-Lite, OWL-DL, OWL-Full)
- Things that can be specified in OWL
- A class as a union, intersection or complement of other classes
- Specifying a class as being disjoint from some other class
- Synonymous classes
- Cardinality restrictions on properties
- Transitivity and uniqueness of properties
- OWL Lite
- RDF syntax for OWL Lite
- Asserting properties as equivalent, inverse, symmetric, transitive
- OWL-DL and OWL Full
- Direct enumeration of members of a class
- Disjointness between two classes
- OWL Full extensions to OWL-DL
Reasoning and Description Logics
- Overview of logic and reasoning
- Kinds of reasoning
- Planning
- Deduction
- Query languages and SPARQL (Simple Protocol and RDF Query Language)
- Description Logics and Description Languages
- TBox (ontology) and ABox (knowledge base) as concepts
- Reasoning - Inferring Knowledge
- Reasoning techniques
- Rule languages
Agent Communication - Overview, Models and Examples
Semantic Web Services
- Web Service Architecture
- Web Service Description Language
- Knowledge Services - an overview
- Service Ontologies


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Officers fear a coup on road to vote
Officers fear a coup on road to vote
Larry Jagan, Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: March 29. 2009 8:30AM UAE / March 29. 2009 4:30AM GMT
BANGKOK // Myanmar's leader has warned political parties planning to contest elections scheduled for next year that they must shun foreign ideologies.
"Democracy in Myanmar today is at a fledgling stage and still requires patient care and attention," Gen Than Shwe said in an address to troops assembled in Naypitdaw, the capital, to celebrate Armed Forces Day.
"We have to ensure that the progress of democracy in the country does not affect non-disintegration of the union and non-disintegration of national solidarity."
Gen Than rarely speaks in public except at the annual Armed Forces Day, which marks the day in 1945 when the army of Myanmar, also known as Burma, launched its resistance fight against the Japanese occupation forces. But this year's celebration is different, as it may be the last before the country is ruled by a civilian government – which would be the first since 1962.
Beneath the pomp and ceremony, and the show of strength and harmony, there are signs of splits and dissension within the ranks over the army's future role in the country as well as over the country's political future and the road map to democracy.
The last three stages of the seven-stage road map to democracy, announced in Aug 2003, could dramatically change the role of the army as it involves free and fair elections and the convening of the national and provincial parliaments, followed by the establishment of a developed and democratic nation under the new parliament and constitution.
A battle is emerging between those who control most of Myanmar's assets and those who see themselves as the country's guardians.
On one side are the ministers and members of the ruling State Peace and Development Council, who have major business interests and are associated with Gen Than's brainchild, the mass community-based organisation, the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA). They have been running the government for nearly a decade and have accumulated massive wealth.
On the other side are the middle- and top-ranking generals, who graduated from the Defence Services Academy, as did their mentor, second-in-command Maung Aye. They see their main role as the protector of the people, and are anxious to see the military machine transformed into a professional army and withdraw from politics and the economy. They have become dismayed at the excessive corruption within government and understand that it is undermining the army's future role in the country.
As the conflict between these two groups escalates, Gen Than's deteriorating health and increasing reclusiveness have effectively left the country without a real leader. The result is inertia in government administration.
"Everyone is trying to second guess the big boss, and all critical decisions are being deferred until they are sure he has actually given them the go-ahead," said a European businessman who was recently in Naypitdaw.
There is also fear that one of the contesting factions may launch a "soft coup" in the near future, according to military sources in Myanmar. But the real army, as these officers see themselves as, is going to have to act quickly if it is to remain a force to be reckoned with.
In the new political environment, the USDA will play a crucial role: either as the key pro-military party or an intermediary between the army and whatever political party emerges. All this will significantly increase its power and control over the country's new political process.
Senior members of the army are increasingly resentful of the growing dominance of Gen Than's USDA and the likely curtailment of the army's authority in the months leading up to the election.
"When the new parliament is elected, it will bring an abrupt end to the army's absolute power," said a Myanmar government official.
These ministers and top USDA officials have all amassed huge personal fortunes from smuggling and kickbacks. "These fellows are out of control and raking in the money from bribery and fraud; no one can touch them," a military source in Myanmar said. "They are building enormous war chests while they can. Some will use it for the elections, but there are others who are reluctant to squander their ill-gotten wealth on the election campaign."
Many in the army are concerned that this group is planning a grab for power using the USDA as a front.
There is also resentment and frustration among junior officers in the ministry of defence, many of them divisional commanders.
"They are watching their unscrupulous colleagues hiding behind the uniform, building up massive fortunes from corruption in government, and they are worried that this is tarnishing the image of the army as a result," a source in Naypitdaw said.
Although the grumbling and resentment have increased, there are still no signs of a coup.
"There is no doubt that many in the army are extremely unhappy with they way things are going, and are concerned about what will happen to them after the elections," said Byo Nein, the son of a former government minister and a Thailand-based writer who follows Myanmar's military affairs.
"But they are army officers and will continue to obey their orders unquestioningly."
So far there is little to suggest that they are planning a purge of their opponents in the same way that the former prime minister, Khin Nyunt, and his intelligence apparatus were crushed five years ago.
"Nothing can be ruled out at this stage as resentment and anger is growing among the junior officers and the rank-and-file soldiers," said Win Min, an independent analyst based at Chiang Mai University in northern Thailand.


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Saturday, April 20, 2013
I need green!
Where ees the grass? I need grass! Eberywhere the Wooman ees pulleen' orp hor plantas, I yam roneen' to see eef she has grass por me.
No grass.
She say she weell plant sorm. Worn carntainer ob grass. Yos por me.
9 comments:
And catnip. Don't forget the catnip.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 20, 2013 at 4:01 PM
Did she plant any catnip for you? If not I could send you some cause I have a catnip plantation.ReplyDelete
And a palm tree. To remind you of the DR.ReplyDelete
We have Nibble-Licious cat grass seeds from Pet Smart. They sprout in a few days. She could definitely have a crop ready for you both before you go for your Feesheen treatment, and another crop afterwards. The package is 5 ounces of seeds, enough for a LOT of cropsReplyDelete
I bed ju weel hab MUCHO cad grass thees sum hair amigo. Een faghd, I theen' ju may habe mucho treeds eef theen's go well. I weel hab all appendages, eben my eyes, crorsed por ju. x(x.x)xReplyDelete
- AnonymousApril 20, 2013 at 6:12 PM
Tell jour Wooman to nat skeeemp on the cadnib! Pack some por jour feeshen trip.ReplyDelete
It's a little-known fact that it's regular grass that makes you eyes green.ReplyDelete
(Tell the wooman to watch for some mail in YOUR name)
Maybe there will be cad grass at the spa!ReplyDelete


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Doesn't this Christmas Pudding look delicious!
The holidays are filled with so many wonderful things, which include eating things that are special for the holiday. The Joset Designs Christmas Pudding die set helps us celebrate this tradition. I have never made a Christmas Pudding, but after working with this die, that will be one of the new recipes I must try.
This is the card I designed for my Elizabeth Craft Designs design team blog post at this LINK.
Start with a 7 x 5 1/2 inch card base. Cover the front with either design paper of your choice or use another piece of white card stock as I did with scored lines down the front, to create stripes.
Start with a 7 x 5 1/2 inch card base. Cover the front with either design paper of your choice or use another piece of white card stock as I did with scored lines down the front, to create stripes.
Use the Joset Designs Christmas Pudding die set to die cut all the pieces using the White Soft Finish Cardstock. This cardstock has a beautiful textured finish. Sponge the "cake" die cut using Tea Dye Distress Ink, then sponge Aged Mahogany Distress Ink along the bottom. Sponge a little Tea Dye Distress Ink along the bottom portion of the icing.
Using Gold Metallic Shimmer Sheetz, die cut the "trims" for the cake plate using a Metal Adaptor Plate. Glue these pieces to the plate then add small Red Glitter Dots to the scallops along the bottom of the plate. Glue the icing to the top of the pudding and attach to the cake plate. Use a piece of white card stock with Clear Double Sided Adhesive on one side to die cut the Holly and Berries. Use Silk Microfine Glitter; I used True Red for the Berries and Go To Green for the Holly Leaves. Glue to the top of the pudding.
Use the largest Els van de Burgt Studio Dotted Scallop Circle die to die cut a circle, using design paper of your choice. Cut the circle in half about 1 1/2" from the bottom of the edge, to use as a doily. I used a Gold Line Peel Off Sticker for a trim along the edge, just above the scallops of the die cut. Use a thin line gold Line Peel Off Sticker to go around the top edge of the scallop trim on the plate, and on the two gold trim die cuts on the bottom of the cake plate.
Die cut the A Way With Words Merry Christmas using Red Metallic Shimmer Sheetz. Use a Metal Adaptor Plate to die cut.
Assemble the card as shown. To finish the card, use Gold Line and Corner Peel Off Stickers to outline the card front.
The following products can be purchased from Elizabeth Craft Designs -


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The Cattle Herd
Our Family maintains a small herd of registered and percentage Simmental Cattle.
Our cattle herd is raised on the Henslee farm where they happily graze all summer on beautiful pastures.
There are currently 4 cows in the herd. And while their numbers are small, their production is mighty.
Calves are born from January through March in the Wintering Barn. Every once and a while there are fall calves born out on pasture.
Heifers are raised as replacements and bull calves are sold for breeding stock or as feeder calves.
Corinne and Ellen show their beef breeding projects at the Medina County Fair.


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Yes, it's a cute one called sigmarion III.
First, you need a CJK locale information called WINCE.NLS, which you can find from 0bang.org
You have to build a single CJK truetype font on your own, because you can't link fonts continuously on Windows CE as you have done with Windows XP. You might try versions of CJK truetype fonts such as CyberCJK, Code2000 or MS Arial Unicode. Link any CJK font you choose to the default Tahoma font.
!!! efont.ttf is a bitmap only font, so vector-oriented display schemes like Picsel browser can't render its glyphs.
This is, actually, a custom-built truetype font based on the XCJK project, only for personal use currently, though. It weighs about 13MB. 🙁
If you don't have time or courage to build your own CJK font, I recommend that you try CyberCJK with antialiasing and ClearType on.
The first picture above is showing how to type Chinese characters using CE-Star. Of course, you are also able to input Korean and Japanese as usual using Diopen, MS-IME or ATOK at the same document.
Here are some CJK examples on sigmarion 3.
Chinese conversation drill for business travelers
Picsel Browser
Yahoo China
Yahoo Korea
Yahoo Japan


text:
At Coker Law, we have 17 attorneys on our team ready to fight for your rights to ensure you receive the justice you deserve. Our experienced staff is on hand to hear your story.
If you feel you've been wronged by an insurance company, a negligent individual or an unresponsive bureaucracy, talk to us. Tell us your story below, if you've been injured, we can help you get the compensation you need to help you and your family recover and move on with your life.


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Hopefully this isn't a stupid question - if it is, feel free to mock me!
I'm a relative newbie on harp. I currently have 4 Hohner Special 20s in different keys - G, A, C, and D. I frequently jam with friends around a campfire at night, and I always have trouble locating the correct harp because the Special 20s only have the tiny embossed letter distinguishing the keys - almost impossible to see at night, especially when alchohol is involved!
I was thinking about buying one of those multi-harp carrying cases and making sure I keep them in the same order. Or I had also thought about trying to mark them somehow to make them easier to recognise. Any tips? Stop drinking so much ?


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Work-study may refer to:
Cooperative education (or co-operative education) is a structured method of combining classroom-based education with practical work experience. A cooperative education experience, commonly known as a "co-op", provides academic credit for structured job experience. Cooperative education is taking on new importance in helping young people to make the school-to-work transition, service learning, and experiential learning initiatives. Cooperative education is also the use of active participation methods in which students learn how to work together to solve problems, this is normally founded on the principles of children's rights, equality, equity and participation in decision-making. Its methods include game playing, expressing opinions, democratic participation, sharing, ensuring students all have an equal opportunity to take part, and conflict resolution.
In Great Britain at the beginning of the 19th century, co-operative living and learning were promoted by early advocate of socialism Robert Owen. In 1817 he founded a school in his cotton mill community of New Lanark in Scotland. This was based on the principles of co-operation, that children should be at school and not labouring in the mills, that the rules of the playground should be to be happy and help others to be happy. He employed adults who loved children, not teachers, and saw children as naturally inquisitive. He saw geography and comparative religion as ways that children might learn that who they were to become was defined by the culture and religion they were brought-up in. He believed that we could create co-operative based communities through learning and reason. His work was so important that New Lanark is a UNESCO heritage site, and at the time people from around the world would visit it to see how it worked.
Undergrads is a Canadian animated television series centered on the lives of four college undergraduate freshmen. Originally broadcast on MTV in 2001, only thirteen episodes were created. It has since been shown on Comedy Central in the United States, Teletoon in Canada, and Trouble in the United Kingdom. The show was conceived by Pete Williams, when he dropped out of college at the age of 19. Willams does most of the voices on the show. The series was produced by David McGrath.
The show depicts what might be a typical first-year college experience. Characters in the show represent stereotypical college types; including the everyman (Nitz), the "frat boy" (Rocko), the "ladies' man" (Cal), the nerd (Gimpy), the cool girl (Jessie), and the "ditz" (Kimmy). Typical situations depicted in the show include student loans, bad cafeteria food, questioning of identity, fraternity rivalries, odd traditions, unpleasant RAs, money problems, peer pressure, and the "freshman fifteen". Few episodes depict the characters in class; the one exception being Rocko's ROTC class in the episode, Financial Aid.


text:
I Stepped On A Legooooo!
It's not just kittehs that love captions! ALL THE ANIMALS DO! Check out Animal Capshunz for MOAR!
He chose the perfect moment. His mournful cry echoed through the stillness of the forest, declaring to all that he was still the master hunter, the top dog as it were, the alpha male of the pack, the lord of the forest.
It was subsequently ruined by a little chipmunk screaming for him to "Shut the hell up!"


text:
With new IM capabilities now available from Windows Live Hotmail in many countries around the world*, Hotmail is ready to step up to more responsibility as MSN Web Messenger prepares to retire.
You can now chat from your Hotmail inbox or contact list, instead of going to MSN Web Messenger (http://webmessenger.msn.com/). Go directly to the Windows Live People page at http://people.live.com and log into Messenger (orange arrow in the picture below) to continue instant messaging on the web with your Messenger friends.
Instant messaging from Hotmail makes it easier to communicate and share in new ways in comparison to MSN Web Messenger. Because of integration with the Windows Live Suite, you can view presence information while reading an email and simultaneously start a chat to clarify your friend's e-mail message. We're pointing customers to the new web version of Messenger so that we can focus our efforts on delivering an even better IM experience.
Give it a try! We hope that you'll enjoy Hotmail's version of Messenger on the web.


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Sat, 07/20/2013 - 07:33
I am a graduate of Kirkwood Senior High School. I will be attending Southeast Missouri State University in the fall.
From the beginning the whole college thing was not my forte. I struggled with so many things because I didn't know how to properly fill out paperwork for school. My sister referred me to this place and I am glad she did. I met with a rep from my school who my sister also knew which made it a lot easier to talk to him. He helped me out with whatever questions I had, especially about housing. I am a little scared of having a roommate I know absolutely nothing about but he gave me some faith that everything will be fine.
Looking ahead to college life makes my head spin because I have no clue what I am walking into. The High School to College Center helped me out in all aspects of surviving college. Their main idea is to definitely stay focused. The people in the Center are really sweet and there is never a question you have that they can't answer. If they don't have the answer the reps or the people who work there will make phone calls to make sure you get all you need before you exit the building. One of my friend's parents said that they wished there was a place like this when they were growing up and I am glad I have one. I might have to make a stop by there just to thank them.
I have never met so many people willing to help out students with school questions. I had no idea that there was such a place. The fact that I can go somewhere and get help is really reassuring because I probably would not be starting school in the fall if it was not for this place. Thank you guys for all of your help. SEE YOU SOON!!!
Jazmin was the 100th student to visit the High School to College Center this summer!


text:
Many adults have fond memories of 'playing out' on the pavement or in the street as children. For today's children it's quite a different story, but it doesn't have to be – a little planning and imagination can make 'playing out' an important part of your child's life too.
Research shows that 90% of adults played out regularly in their street as children. The majority of children now would like to do the same, but one in three aged between seven and 14 don't play or hang out in their street at all.
Street play offers an important stepping stone for both children and parents in the journey from the supervised play of younger years to the independent lifestyle of teenagers.
How does outdoor play benefit children?
Playing outdoors is not only lots of fun, it also plays an important role in children's development and there are many benefits that you may not have realised. Here are just a few:
- Children love to play. It allows them to get messy, meet up with other kids, make choices and decide their own rules
- Active outdoor play, running, jumping, climbing, chasing, is one of the best ways for children to stay physically active because it's fun and they'll forget they're exercising
- As well as being fun, it's vital for their physical, social and emotional development. Play is so important that it is a human right under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
- Active play helps children stay healthy. It can combat obesity and reduces the risk of serious illnesses
- It helps them concentrate, relax, focus at school and sleep better at night
- They'll make friends and develop social skills and their imagination
- Playing independently with other kids helps them to learn about risk and improve their self-confidence
- It's a great way to spend time as a family
Get started with active play
At first, you may want to stay with your children - you could do some gardening or have a chat with a neighbour. Try not to get too involved in your child's play - let them decide what to do and how to play.
Invite a few local children and their parents to join you when you feel confident, and let them play on the pavement while you're in the house. It's a good idea to set boundaries of where they can and cannot go and remind them of road safety. Leave your front door ajar so that you can hear them and check on them from time to time.
For more information and advice on playing out, visit Play England, London Play or Playing Out.
Things to do
Your children will most likely want to make up their own games for street play, or try the following ideas:
- Wheels - kids relish the opportunity to use their bikes, scooters and roller skates up and down the pavement
- Chalk - children come up with imaginative designs for pavement drawing and it brightens up your street too
- Balls - kick around with a game of football - use our Street Football guide (pdf) to get started
- Traditional street games - the old ones are still the best - children will love some of the games parents and grandparents used to play
Playing Out sessions
Another option is to run a Playing Out session, limiting traffic for a few hours after school to allow children to play in the street.
Residents can have vehicle access and leave their cars parked in the street. However, it does often require a road closure application and you'll need to set up a rota of stewards to manage the cars. Children are encouraged to do whatever they feel like doing; they may chalk on the pavements, have a football match or play on bikes and scooters.


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At work I mostly make use of the combination of TFS and Visual Studio. I also fiddle around with Git from time to time. As with the latest Visual Studio there' also Git integration.
What I did was fork zencoding on github.
When opening our project on Github we need the url to clone. You can find that in the right lower corner:
For me that's https://github.com/KvdM/zencoding.git.
Ok, so now let's open our IDE of choice: Visual Studio2013. Follow these steps:
And then we get, after a quick download of the good stuff, the following to see:
Double click on the zencoding name and then the following appears:
It felt a bit weird to see two .sln files but it turned out to be I had to double click the second one to get the code.
Code! Finally code! Ok let's try to make a new test method. I put one in the Lorem.cs file:
Now open up the Team Explorer pane again and click on Changes:
Fill in some comment and click the Commit button:
That's the good message we see now:
Either we sync from here but it's more general to go to Team Explorer again and click on the Unsynced commits:
Press the Sync button:
Fill in the credentials:
And… I have to fill it in again?? Doing that results in the following:
An error occurred. Detailed message: An error was raised by libgit2. Category = Net (Error). Response status code does not indicate success: 401 (Authorization Required).
What? Checking credentials again, typo perhaps, …?
Well it turned out to be that I had two factor authentication turned on. A good thing. However I didn't see an input field where I could enter the numbers for that extra authentication step (which improves security so be sure to turn it on if you haven't already).
I asked around and got a good tip from Phil Haack. When you have two factor authentication on you should be able to login via an authentication token. You can generate this on the site of Github. Open Settings > Applications (https://github.com/settings/applications) and generate a token.
Copy paste that particular token in a safe place as you're going to be needing it soon.
Going back to Team Explorer in Visual Studio we click the Sync button again. The credentials screen shows again and instead of filling in a username we paste in the token we just generated. Leave the password input field blank. Click the OK button and yes, finally we succeeded in synching to Github:
And in Github we can see the changes that came through:
Another tip I got was that you might also need to fill in x-oauth-basic for the password part. Also read out some more documentation here: https://help.github.com/articles/git-automation-with-oauth-tokens.
Be sure to check out Git in Visual Studio. It's awesome and I'm sure we'll see more effort in better tooling in the future as well. Of course TFS will stay in there as well as it's also a great system.
Grz, Kris.
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I-Spy Jubilee Britain
A couple of roads (and any number of bridleways) across Salisbury Plain are often closed by Army training exercises. Perhaps the most (in)famous of these is the road through Imber village – whose entire civilian population was evacuated in 1943 to provide a training area for troops preparing for the invasion of Europe. Since then, the village has remained in military hands and civilians are only allowed in for a few days each year. The Jubilee weekend provided one of those rare opportunities.
The road proved far better than the sign suggests!
A break in the Jubilee downpour allowed me to escape the four walls slowly closing in around me at home. My plan was to ride across the Imber road to Warminster, then through Gillingham to Shaftesbury, before returning along two river valleys – down the Nadder valley to Wilton before a stiff up and over into the Avon valley and the last few miles home. Not only was this a great 73-mile ride, it also turned into an 'I-Spy book of British images'.
The first few miles riding out through Larkhill were cold and full finger gloves would have helped. However a glance south provided a distant view of Stonehenge (Ancient monument: score 10 points), although it was marred by several coaches already at the visitor centre by 9am. Establishing a good cadence warmed me up and I turned off onto the Tilshead road that skirts Westdown military camp – my first road 'less travelled' due to army closures. In the five miles to Tilshead, I saw no cars and only one other cyclist – virtually my own private road. At Tilshead I joined the A350 for a quick thrash to Gore Cross and the left turn to Imber.
There are many signs at the start of the road warning the public not to venture further if red flags are flying, and not to venture off the carriageway due to unexploded military debris. Despite these warnings, the road is fantastic for cycling and rises gently onto the top of the Plain. Approaching Imber village is quite surreal – it nestles down in a hollow, it's presence first given away by the church tower, but what really hits you is how quiet it is – the lack of man-made noise seemingly amplifying the birdsong. Most of the buildings are modern shells used by the army for live firing urban-fighting training. The church is now the only intact original building and it remains a consecrated church, opening on special occasions such as this weekend. Refreshments were being served and although early I succumbed...(Cream tea: score 10 points. For church funds: bonus 5 points).
But I wasn't the only one taking advantage of the Plain roads being open. Once a year, a bus service runs through the village using vintage Routemaster buses (the iconic red London bus). Bizzarely bikeroutetoaster.com et al actually show the village bus stop on their maps! So at 10:10am, four Routemasters arrived along with the prototype new London bus (the 'Boris bus'), operating out of London for the first time ever apparently Red London bus: score 10 points. New 'Boris bus': bonus 5 points).
You wait 69 years for a bus to turn up.....and then five turn up together....
The ride onwards towards Warminster was enlivened by bus racing, rusting tanks and bizarrely a busking bagpiper about a mile from the nearest habitation although his playing may explain that distance Bagpipes: score 10 points)..
The height gained gradually since Imber is lost suddenly on the long, steep Sack Hill into Warminster – my speedy descent was interrupted and somewhat enlivened by the realisation that there were speed bumps at the Army check point halfway down. I cycled through the pretty town centre and out across the by-pass onto the A350 for an encounter with the Deverills – four villages set along the River Wylye – all picture-postcard villages with thatched cottages (score: 5 points), red phone boxes (score: 5 points) and an old AA sign (score: 10 points). Adding to the iconic British imagery was a black cab (score: 5 points) in Brixton Deverill (not sure he should have been south of the river at that time of day!) and a village fete (score: 5 points) in Kingston Deverill.
Lots of points on offer here....
Beyond the Deverills, a stiff climb out of the valley gave me the opportunity to watch gliders being winched into the air on the hillside opposite. The weather was improving and for once I was climbing well, which got me humming Jerusalem...
...O clouds, unfold. Bring me my chariot of fire. I will not cease from mental fight...
To further mis-quote from Jerusalem...
'And was the holy Lamb of God on England's pleasant pastures seen?'
Well yes actually! (score: 5 points)
Then a dive downhill into Mere, where they appeared to be celebrating the Jubilee with as many Scottish Saltire as Union Flags. The town square is classic England – clock tower opened by the Prince of Wales in 1868 (score: 5 points), war memorial (score: 5 points) and half-timbered Inn once used by Royalty (Charles II, 1651) (score: 10 points), although unfortunately (score: -5 points) as the building is actually stone built and had it's mock tudor facade added in the 1920s!
Highlights of my route through Gillingham and on towards Shaftesbury were distinctly automotive – three classic Rolls Royces in convoy (score: 5 points), a Morris Minor (score: 5 points) and unfortunately those icons of Modern Britain – white van man passing horribly close to cyclist (score -5 points) and fast food litter on the roadside (score: -5 points).
The roadside sign welcoming you to Shaftesbury announces itself as 'a Saxon hill-top town' – it wasn't joking, the hill into town went on and on steadily upwards. The sign also indicated that the town was originally twinned with a W.German town, although the 'W.' had been painted over. Poignant to think that I started the day in a village evacuated so the army could prepare to fight the Germans, and now I was seeing a sign reflecting the post-war division of Germany, the re-growth of links between our two countries and latterly Germany's reunification.
Back to the I-Spy and the reason for riding to Shaftesbury – perhaps one of the most iconic views in Britain. Gold Hill was immortalised in the famous Hovis bread advert (Score: 15 points). It gains 24 metres in height over a length of about 150 metres and I wanted to cycle up it. Largest sprocket selected and up I went.... The climb is wickedly steep and enlivened by three things – (1) it is cobbled, which makes picking a line interesting, (2) tourists have a nasty habit of stopping to take photos, unaware that some idiot may be cycling up the hill towards them unable to steer normally due to the aforementioned cobbles, and (3) you have a ready-made audience sitting outside the cafe at the top – but at least they gave me a round of applause when I made it! The jelly legs took ten minutes to wear off!
I made it up! (Score: bonus 5 points)
Leaving Shaftesbury behind, I quickly regained the country lanes along the Nadder valley past Teffont Manor and Wardour Castle towards Tisbury. Looking over one of the many bridges, I could see trout in the chalk stream below (score: 5 points). A little further on, a green woodpecker raced me along the road for a short length before diving back into the surrounding woodland. However the village of Dinton provided the biggest 'I-Spy' catch of the day – Royalty! Firstly, the Queen (score: 50 points) – well OK – a young girl on her way to a street party dressed up as HRH – but she did at least give me a Royal wave, much to the amusement of her mum. And then the Queen and Prince Phillip (score: 50 points) – well OK – the balcony scene at Buckingham Palace re-created behind a Juliet balcony on a modern house.
After many miles of quiet cycling, Wilton seemed a virtual metropolis with traffic lights, tourist coaches and the very British image of smokers spilling out of the pubs into the 'fresh' air (score: -5 points). The bowls club was busy with white-clad bowlers in action (score: 5 points) and the Wilton Carpet factory shop and the garden centre appeared busy. Judging by the car park, Wilton House was proving popular too.
Wilton House marks the Jubilee. Stately Home (score: 10 points)
The big climb out of Wilton gained sufficient height for a distant view of Salisbury Cathedral, (Cathedral, score: 5 points). before a switchback descent into the Woodford valley and then the steady climb up the valley towards Amesbury and then home. My final I-Spy entry of the day? Once home, feet up with a very British mug of tea and digestive biscuits (Score: 5 points!).


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James Toplis and William Harding formed Toplis & Harding in London
The predecessor to Toplis & Harding North America is founded in Chicago to service Lloyd's underwriters.
Services expanded to cover all non-marine claims.
Began marine cargo operations.
Lloyd's acquires Company from Employers Reinsurance Corporation (then owned by Getty Oil), and forms T&H (Toplis & Harding) Holdings Corp., Inc.
Management group acquires Toplis & Harding from Lloyds.
Toplis & Harding signs agreement with McLaren, Dick & Company to provide global loss adjusting services.
Name changed from Toplis & Harding to McLarens Toplis North America, Inc. (MTNAI).
The company is renamed Vericlaim. A new and expanded global network of partners – vrs Adjusters – is created to serve our clients' needs worldwide.
The company completes a management buyout, with Silver Oak Services Partners, to provide additional growth capital to the business and embark on an aggressive expansion plan.
The company enters the United Kingdom via the launch of a new subsidiary, Vericlaim UK,Ltd.
Flexpoint Ford, LLC, a private equity firm focused on the financial services and healthcare sectors, acquired a majority interest in Toplis & Harding Holdings, Inc. ("Vericlaim") from Silver Oak Services Partners, LLC.
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CAMBRIDGE, Mass.
The plan is to meet at noon, near the pillars at Harkness Commons, after his applied mathematics class. Look for a guy with short dark hair, he says, and wire-rim glasses. And here he comes now, ambling across the Harvard campus, wearing the standard undergraduate uniform -- black jeans, denim shirt, work boots, thin silver ring through the inner curve of one ear.
"Hi, I'm Alex," he says. Firm handshake.
Would anyone know? Probably not.
Alex Myers, Class of '00, speaks in an unexceptional tenor. He is 19 years old. About 5 feet 6, he doesn't stand out from myriad other college men. Yet at another time, or in another place, he might well have ignited a serious scandal.
As a freshman last year, Myers moved into a coed dormitory called Greenough Hall, assigned to a single room on the all-male fourth floor. A bit of a nerd who piled on science and math courses, he objected when a neighbor blared rave music at night, but otherwise kept pretty much to himself. The other guys knew he came from a tiny Maine town via a prestigious prep school, Phillips Exeter Academy; they said hello in passing.
Anonymity was fine, for a while. But by the second month on campus, former Exeter classmates had started to gossip. And Myers himself felt uneasy about concealing an essential fact. "It makes me feel as though I'm ashamed of who I am," he reasoned. And he wasn't.
So he told his dorm mates the truth: For his first 17 years, he'd been Alice Myers, a tomboy who kept her hair short and loathed dresses but was, nonetheless, a girl. Just before her senior year at Exeter, however, Alice figured it out: Despite her female body, she felt like a man, a state known as being "transgendered."
So Alice legally changed her name; Myers's driver's license and Harvard ID now read Alex. But despite having jettisoned his Alice identity, he hadn't opted for hormone treatments or surgery, hadn't even seen a doctor. So technically -- biologically -- the guy in Room 407 still belonged to the female side of the species.
Perhaps the most arresting part of this story is what happened next, which was . . . practically nothing. Mild surprise followed by a collective so-what. Confronted with what might have seemed a masquerade, a falsehood, possibly a psychiatric disorder -- "to most people, transgenderism isn't something you expect to meet, it's something you see on `Oprah,' " notes Mike Hellerstein, one of Myers's dorm mates -- the men of Greenough Hall mostly shrugged. There was more fourth-floor bickering about loud music than about sharing bathrooms with a man who got menstrual cramps.
"There really wasn't any reason for a problem," says T. Timothy Wang, who roomed down the hall. "He didn't make a big production out of it. He was just like anyone else."
Well, no. But Myers and Harvard have proved a fortunate match: The student who insists on living in the gender that feels right even if it conflicts with physiology -- but insists he doesn't want to shock people -- has settled onto a campus and into a town (a k a the People's Republic of Cambridge) where shock can be downright difficult to produce.
Take the hate mail. It totaled exactly one letter, propped outside a student's door -- no, not Alex Myers's door. It was sent to a student government representative who had opposed Myers's proposal to protect the the transgendered from discrimination; it denounced him as a "jackbooted Nazi thug."
What Myers gets, publicly at least, is accolades. "He's seen as an inspiration," says Lamelle Rawlins, Harvard's student body president.
For a decade, the buzzword at universities and in the workplace has been diversity. Harvard's response to the case of Alex Myers shows its willingness to keep stretching the definition of diverse -- and if it formally amends its nondiscrimination code, as Myers is urging, other colleges may follow this bellwether institution.
Outside the rarefied, tolerant air of the academy, others might see something truly odd about all this. Is gender a decision? Can a person ignore chromosomes and private parts and declare him/herself to be other than what biology dictates? Is there no meaningful difference between someone who surgically transforms himself and someone who bases his manhood on feelings, nothing more than feelings?
`A Typographical Error'
As the new school year began, Myers took up residence at the Dudley Co-op, a gabled Victorian house on the edge of the campus where students cook communal meals in exchange for reduced room and board. With its slightly ratty furniture, wooden wire-spool table and postered walls, it's a throwback to every Cambridge student pad of 30 years ago. A detritus of books, bike helmets and backpacks has settled over just about every surface. Myers, in the kitchen rooting around for lunch, comes up with whole grain bread and natural peanut butter from a huge plastic tub.
In some ways, he's an heir to that earlier, more political era. His cramped single room upstairs (decorated with portraits of k.d. lang, the much less androgynous V.I. Lenin and Myers's personal deity, Elvis Presley) doesn't have a "Question Authority" bumper sticker on the door -- but it might as well. In other ways, of course, he makes the sexual revolution look quaint.
Articulate and poised, he seems intent on demonstrating how healthy he is, how levelheaded, how sane. Whatever emotional turmoil he encountered on his way to deciding that "he" is the proper pronoun for Alex Myers, it's not on display. "I've always been in favor of finding the best in a situation, finding the people who accept me, leaving the others behind and moving on," he says coolly, eating his highly organic sandwich.
This is the person who, packaged in a more serious navy blazer and tie, sat in the Exeter library almost two years ago, hoping to persuade an interviewer that he was Harvard material.
Myers thought things were going well. He had high grades, varsity letters in lacrosse and ice hockey, the slight edge that comes from having a Harvard-grad father. The interviewer, a middle-age alumnus, "wanted to know what clubs I was involved in, what field I wanted to go into, all those typical questions," Myers recalls.
Then the guy picked up Myers's transcript to check some detail. "He goes, `Oh my goodness, someone's made a typographical error.' " The transcript, pre-name change, still read Alice.
"No, that's actually my legal name," Myers told him, explaining. He has gotten used to explaining. "There was a pause . . . I have no idea what thoughts were going through his head." The man finally said, "I see." After one or two more questions, the interview was over. Myers hoped his Harvard career wasn't over as well.
A few weeks later, Harvard called to say it was sending a second interviewer. There followed another chat in the library, during which neither applicant nor interviewer mentioned gender at all.
And now, here's Myers the Harvard sophomore, the geology major, the occasional intramural wrestler on a coed team. The newly elected representative to the Undergraduate Council. The treasurer of the campus Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgendered and Supporters Alliance -- or BGLTSA, which keeps adding more initials but never had a T for transgendered until last year, when Myers pointedly asked why not. His girlfriend -- an Exeter classmate who's at Brown -- takes the bus up on weekends. She is, biologically and behavorially, female. They describe their relationship as "heterosexual."
Confused? Alex Myers isn't -- at least not anymore.
Growing up in rural southwestern Maine, Alice Myers was so androgynous that she often was mistaken for a boy. She had screaming fights with her mother when she was forced to put on a dress, "the ultimate statement of femininity," for special occasions. "There was no way to be who I thought I was and wear a dress," Myers says.
Always an outdoorsy kid eager to traipse through the woods with her older brother and his pals, Alice left Paris, Maine, to enter ninth grade at Exeter. Shortly after arriving, she decided that she was a lesbian.
It seemed a solution to a persistent sense of being "different from other girls," Myers recalls. That's a trait any therapist who works with the transgendered would recognize, an early sense that "who I thought I was" didn't match the body nature had provided.
But how many ninth-graders would know what it meant? "I hadn't met any transgendered people, but I'd met a fair number of lesbians," Alex says now. "I figured there was a place for me in the lesbian community as a sort of masculine woman."
Which worked for a while. Alice threw herself into nonstop athletics and academics to avoid thinking too much. "But when I did think about it, who I was, there wasn't anyone who understood me."
Then in the summer after her junior year, studying at the Harvard Summer Program, Alice encountered the Boston Alliance of Gay and Lesbian Youth. The dawn came up. There were actually other people who, like her, had always seen themselves as belonging to the opposite gender -- and were "transitioning," with or without medical assistance, from one side of the great divide to the other. "I'd listen to these trans-people tell about their experiences and I'd realize that what they'd said could have come out of my mouth," Alex says.
Alice became Alex at Exeter in the fall of '95, perhaps not as dramatic a change as it sounds. "It's not like Alex assumed a male identity; he always had it," says his brother, Seth, a senior at George Washington University. "If you'd known Alex as Alice, you'd still see the same person."
His parents, who now live in the District, regard the gender turnabout a little differently. Though Myers asked that they not be interviewed, he acknowledged that they had found his announcement "difficult." After all, Alice, for 17 years the daughter of a lawyer father and a mother who works with disabled children, came home from a summer in Cambridge and said, "Mom, Dad, sit down, I have something to tell you. I'm a man." How could it fail to be shocking?
His father has worried about Alex's happiness; he fretted to Alex's brother that being transgendered sounded "like a tortured road." Alex's mother sometimes tangles her pronouns -- once, stumbling between "he" and "she," frustratedly called Alex "it." But, Seth reports, "We're all getting better at this. We all love Alex very much."
As Oprah, Geraldo, et al. have demonstrated, this is a story that, with variations, thousands could tell. Experts use the word "transgendered" to refer to a spectrum of people uncomfortable with their biological gender, from the occasional cross-dresser to the person who undertakes physical conversion via surgery and hormones. The latter are sometimes called transsexuals, but the nomenclature is still under debate, along with such unanswerable questions as how many transgendered people exist and what makes them the way they are. Early pioneers in the field thought most transgendered people were males who wanted to be females (called MTFs) -- but now it appears that there are equal numbers of FTMs, like Alex Myers.
Unlike many of them, though, Myers is willing to live with a certain incongruity. He isn't signing up for any medical treatment. He's suspicious of the long-term effects of taking testosterone, even though it would provide such badges of maleness as a beard and a baritone. He's equally leery of the arduous and expensive "sex-reassignment surgery" -- in his case involving a hysterectomy, a double mastectomy with chest reconstruction, and construction of a small phallus using skin from the forearm -- that would make him more fully (but never completely) male.
"If you're fundamentally unhappy with your life, surgery's not going to cure that," he proclaims. "I'm living a happy and successful life. I don't think it would make me any happier to be male."
Avoiding locker rooms and group showers, he probably could have passed as a Harvard man for some time. Outside Greenough Hall, few knew about his female chromosomes. It was Myers's decision to push the university -- to pledge even greater tolerance than it had already demonstrated -- that made his name, his cause and his unstubbled face public.
`Rules Were Bent'
Last winter, nervously facing the Undergraduate Council in a small amphitheater, Myers explained yet again what it meant to be transgendered. He wanted the student government group to amend its constitution to add "gender identity" to the growing list of categories protected from discrimination. He also wanted the council to recommend that the university change its own campus-wide nondiscrimination code.
"Alex went in and blew everyone away," says Rawlins, the first woman to be elected Harvard student body president. "He was so honest and so brave."
Understand that Harvard hasn't actually discriminated against Myers. Quite the opposite: besides offering the second interview, it acceded to his request for a single room and assigned him a dorm where the shared bathrooms had only one shower and toilet each, barring any need for mass disrobing. "A lot of rules were bent," Myers acknowledges, "to ensure that I had a comfortable first year." But Myers wanted nondiscrimination to go beyond generosity, to written policy.
Not an unprecedented idea: Ordinances forbidding discrimination against the transgendered have been enacted in municipalities including San Francisco and Evanston, Ill., as well as Cambridge itself. Minnesota amended its definition of sexual orientation to include the transgendered; several other cities and states offer protection under sexual orientation or disability provisions. But local governments don't generally get involved in choosing roommates for their citizens or in awarding varsity letters. The few students who spoke against the bill pointed out that Harvard does.
Myers was braced for some of their arguments. There was the religious objection: God created little boys and little girls, one council member argued, and who was this freshman to meddle with what He had wrought? There was also the psychiatric challenge, from a sophomore member named Stephen Mitby: Transgenderism constitutes a mental disorder. (Mainstream psychiatric opinion is shifting on this point, but the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the American Psychiatric Association's bible, still lists several categories of "gender identity disorder.")
Most debaters, however, pondered more pragmatic concerns. If the university couldn't discriminate, could any male who declared himself female move onto a women's floor? Share the bathrooms (and probably leave the seat up)? Could a sprinter too sluggish to make the men's track team decide he was really transgendered and join the women's instead?
Would male-to-female transgendered students be eligible for affirmative action benefits? What about the women's-only grants and scholarships still awarded by Radcliffe College, Harvard's sister school? Would the university code -- which already forbids discrimination based on 10 categories including sexual orientation and political beliefs -- eventually be 10 pages long?
"It's confusing," says junior Justin Danilewitz, who wrote a politely skeptical column in the Crimson, the student daily. It envisioned high school students confronting Harvard applications with three boxes to check -- Male, Female, Other -- and opting for Yale instead. "What's being said is, genitalia no longer matter," Danilewitz says. "It strikes me as a difficult argument to make when, for thousands of years, that's been the overriding factor in sexual identity."
And yes, that is exactly the argument being made: that sex is biology, but gender is a mutable social construct. Or that, as a famous San Francisco cross-dresser once said, sex is what's between the legs but gender is what's between the ears. People are already protected from discrimination on the basis of what's between their legs, the theory goes; why should gender be different?
The Undergraduate Council, by the three-quarters majority required to amend its constitution, agreed. It probably helped, Myers thinks, that two opponents transgressed what he considers the bounds of courtesy and referred to him, apparently deliberately, with female pronouns. He remembers his shock at at hearing "she" and "her" -- the audience actually gasped -- but says that "in the end, I'm grateful. . . . People kind of wanted to distance themselves from what was clearly hatred."
Though in truth, aside from a couple of tense speeches that night, the campus debate has been extraordinarily well mannered. In the months since, the whole issue has largely disappeared.
But Myers and others urging the university to amend its nondiscrimination code don't want it to. They tend to be vague about how the policy would actually be implemented; they're content to leave that to Harvard and the NCAA to figure out. But they want the principle enshrined.
Harvard's not so sure. Harry Lewis, dean of Harvard College, has met several times with students urging a change in the code. The discussions have been cordial, but Lewis thinks "the community needs to understand the issue better" before there's any action. Besides, "we very strongly believe in treating students as individuals, not as representatives of classes."
Even a veteran of the last campaign to amend the code, which culminated in the inclusion of "sexual orientation" in 1985, hasn't decided about this one yet. "I'm not clear enough on the issue to have an opinion," says philosophy professor Warren Goldfarb. But he's aware that what Harvard does has an impact; after that 1985 decision, many universities, he says, "became less afraid" of gay rights and followed suit.
Now, outside his office window, members of the BGLTSA are exuberantly celebrating National Coming Out Day by distributing literature in front of Widener Library. This is an organization that's several times larger than the 111-year-old Republican Club, whose president swears that at Harvard, it's easier to declare oneself g-a-y than GOP. Abba's on the boombox, and several members are dancing atop Widener's imposing granite stairs. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" they carol.
`A Third Sex'
If all Alex Myers wanted was acceptance as a physiological female who lives as a man, he could stop meeting with deans and giving interviews. He's got that -- at least until he graduates and faces a society in which transgendered people may find offensive pronouns the least of their problems.
Some of this rampant tolerance is generational: Opinion polls repeatedly portray the young as more at ease in an international, multiracial, polysexual universe than their elders. And some of it, at least on this campus, is less about politics than about the premium placed on worldliness.
"Unimpressed is very big here," says Courtney Powell, who as a freshman in Greenough Hall last year watched the Alex Myers Story evolve. "It's the attitude of choice. Nothing should shock you."
This bothers some people, notably conservatives like Heather Clayton, co-founder of the campus Republican Alliance, who frets that "it's hip to adopt an anything-goes mentality. There aren't clean lines of acceptable versus non-acceptable."
It seems, though, that Clayton and others haven't yet grasped Myers's true, not particularly hidden, agenda. He doesn't want just to cross gender lines; he'd like to obliterate them.
Already, mental health professionals seem to be revising the idea that the transgendered have a mental disorder requiring treatment. "Psychiatry is much more respectful and agnostic about sexual and gender variety than it used to be," says Lawrence Hartmann, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist who's past president of the American Psychiatric Association. He's read about Myers and notes that "apparently, this person is functioning quite well. Most [psychiatrists] wouldn't leap in to label this as pathology."
And therapists who work with transgendered clients scoff at the notion that anyone would change genders merely to play a sport or nail a scholarship. Where Myers is unusual, even among the transgendered, is in seeking no medical help to become male. But his decision has some logic, since the surgical outcome for women who want to be men is far less satisfactory than male-to-female surgery.
In fact, the non-surgical solution is said to be spreading among younger transgendered people, already more comfortable with bluejeaned, nose-ringed androgyny. Maybe, just as the stereotypes of what's "womanly" and "manly" are fading, the notion that everyone is strictly woman or man -- and that one's body is the sole determinant -- is open to question.
Pat Califia, author of "Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism," swears she sees it happening: "A lot of [transgendered] people say, `I'm not a man or a woman, I'm both, I'm neither . . . a third sex.' "
Which is essentially where Alice-now-Alex stands. "I'd like to trash the entire binary system," he says with relish. "I consider myself outside the realm of this man-woman thing. . . . I'm not trying to be more masculine or less feminine; I'm trying to be myself."
Love Is a Many-Gendered Thing
Myers's girlfriend, Lexi Adams, up for the weekend, turns out to be a buoyant redhead in a tank top and jeans. They're happy to see each other, joshing affectionately on their way to a darkened bistro for dinner. They don't hold hands or otherwise touch, which might have to do with personal style, or a reporter's presence, or the still-unfolding complexities of a "heterosexual" relationship involving two females -- who knows?
What does emerge over the steak (his) and salmon (hers) is a sense of gender that's fluid, to say the least. Myers mentions his summer job as a forest ranger in Wyoming, which is not like Cambridge. He lived as a man because, well, "I didn't want to get hung." On the other hand, he allowed himself to be regarded as a woman to secure a Radcliffe grant, which he used to bring a transgendered speaker to campus. Adams, for her part, is looking forward to a conference for gay, lesbian and transgendered youth, even though -- by her own definitions -- she's none of the above; she's just interested in the subject.
She likes to tell about the Exeter assembly where three middle-aged women in poodle skirts singing '50s songs ("it was pretty scary") asked for a volunteer Elvis impersonator, and Myers, whose veneration of The King was lifelong, obliged with a vigorous version of "Blue Suede Shoes." She thinks it's a funny tale. Myers likes it, too, for a somewhat different reason; when one of the doo-woppers commented on "his" performance, "someone had announced to the whole school that I passed" as a man.
He's grateful for the looser standards that prevail, at least here in the People's Republic. He doesn't have to go to extremes to pass. Yet he also recognizes that he might one day have a change of heart about a change of anatomy: He might yet decide to take hormones or to have some or all of the surgery. He might want a beard. He might want a penis. "I'm famous for changing my mind," he says, unnecessarily.
He sees no contradiction in the things he is. A future scientist. A jock. A man who menstruates. A sophomore nervously planning to bring his girlfriend home for Thanksgiving to meet his parents.
A practiced interpreter of "All Shook Up."


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First Capital Provides $6.5MM to Marketing, Sales Display Maker
First Capital announced that it has provided $6.5 million asset-based senior credit facility to a manufacturer and designer of stock and customized displays for the food and beverage market. The senior credit facility consists of a $5 million working capital revolver collateralized by accounts receivable and inventory, and a term loan in the amount of $1.5 million collateralized by machinery and equipment.
The company faced financial and operational hurdles due to the economic recession and significant damage to its manufacturing facility caused by a storm in 2008. As a result, the company needed to restructure its financing facilities in order to purchase the necessary resources to facilitate new sales growth. First Capital was selected as the working capital partner based on its ability to create a flexible structure that would replace previous financing commitments and allow the company to capitalize on market opportunities.
This transaction was sourced by Mark Pickering and will be serviced by First Capital's Eastern region, managed by John Nooney and located in Atlanta, GA.
First Capital provides working capital financing ranging from $2 million to $15 million primarily to small and middle-market business owners with annual sales ranging from $10 million to $250 million.