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Table Tennis, like many other sports in India, is played mainly as a leisure activity. It began in the 1880s in England, and made it to India during the pre-independence period. Success for India, however, has been sporadic, at best.
However, there have been changes and modernization of the game and India has emerged much stronger than before. Here we look at some of Indian players' achievements in Table Tennis:
Gool Nasikwala won India's first International medal in Table Tennis
Gool Nasikwala played Table Tennis back in the 1950s for India. It was in the 1952 Asian Championships when she won her and India's first medal in the sport. And, it was not just one. She won three gold medals at the inaugural Asian TT Championships that year in the women's singles, women's doubles and the mixed doubles.
Nasikwala partnered with Japan's Yoshiko Tanaka in women's doubles and Kalyanpur Jayant in the mixed doubles competition.
Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships
India's wheel of success began rolling at the Commonwealth Championships with Chetan Baboor and Subramaniam Raman in 1997, while Sharath Kamal has managed to uphold the winning of late.
Sharath is the only Indian to win a single's gold at the Commonwealth Championships. He achieved this feat back in the year 2004 in Malaysia.
India ranks third at the Commonwealth Games Table Tennis
India's 12 medals at the Commonwealth Games ranks at an all time third position, behind Singapore (44 medals) and England (15 medals).
The 12 medals include 4 gold medals, of which Sharath Kamal has won 3.


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Director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's Eleven, Traffic) kept quiet about being removed from the movie Moneyball back at the beginning of the summer, but now he's finally willing to discuss his philosophy about getting dropped from projects.
In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel Soderbergh talked about projects future and past, and why he's able to get over it when a studio dumps him off a film.
The man doesn't seem to bear any grudges when it comes to Moneyball, the film that was going to be based on the book of the same name about the Oakland A's and their stats-obsessed general manager Billy Beane:
There have been a couple of times in my career where I've been unceremoniously removed from projects. I don't waste a lot of energy on it. It doesn't get you anywhere. As soon as it became clear that there was no iteration of that movie [Moneyball] that I was going to get to direct, I immediately started looking around for something else to do. ...So my attitude when something like that happens is, 'What's next?' You can't dwell on it.
His next two films are a bio-pic about Liberace, titled Liberace, and a 3D musical (if you'll believe it) about Cleopatra. Michael Douglas is going to star as Liberace and Matt Damon will play his lover, Scott Thorson, and the script is written by Richard LaGravenese:
It's a great project all the way round and we're right in the middle of acquiring the money to make it. It's a very difficult environment to raise money for a movie like that, because it's a movie for grownups and it's about Liberace. So a lot of people look at it and go, 'Who's this for?'
His Cleopatra film is going to star Catherine Zeta Jones, and he says it's going to be a "total party". A party in 3D, in fact.
It's good to see that Soderbergh hasn't lost his eclectic taste in genres, but do his new projects sound like he's gone a little off his rocker? A 3D musical? Have the tastes of general audiences changed so much in the past couple of years that there's a demand for more films about Cleopatra, or is this Soderbergh kicking sand in the eye of the establishment?
One way or another, we can at least expect this of the director: He will continue to make films we didn't expect.
Source: John Shearer/Getty Images
© 2017 Spike Cable Networks. All Rights Reserved.


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From Fragments to the Whole: The Difficult Passage
Bainard Cowan, Ph.D.
1. What Globalization Isn't
For some time the thinkers of the Dallas Institute have been speaking of an age to come that will stand in dramatic contrast to the modern age, the era in which the developed world existed and transacted business for most of the twentieth century. Events of the last decade have clarified this transition to a new age. As Donald Cowan wrote in the seventies: "There is a darkness shadowing technology; there are dark times coming. The transition from one major epoch to another is not to be accomplished handily. But our response to all the ensuing problems must not be to turn against the light–for it is by means of the poetic and technological illumination that human life has been lifted from its enslavement to matter and directed toward the liberty for which it seems destined." The reading public now generally knows that what is happening is not just a change in politics, although dramatic political events were what first signaled that something was afoot; politics will not show us the dramatic contours of this new form of organization. Similarly, it is not the end of industrialism—a "hyperindustrial" age has instead come about in the time since this false prophecy was uttered. Nor do the terms world government, world order, world market, global culture name this reality. Martin Albrow, author of The Global Age, warns against accepting older or shallower images or terms of this new reality. It is time, he says, for "moving beyond both modernity and postmodernity and recognizing a new reality" (1).
Other factors receiving much of the headlines tell part of the story of this transition. The globalization that we are speaking of is not just rule by world market (although perceptive books—Ulrich Beck, What Is Globalization? Thomas L. Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree—have been written on the enormous implications of this); not just the beginning of the electronic environment; not just biogenetics; not just global climatic change, the "global environmental consequences of aggregate human activities" (Albrow 4); nor is it alone the global destructiveness of weapons and the consequent equal loss of security by all.
Yet all these factors impact on the changed world that we see before us. All, in addition to being parts of the reality, are metaphors of the change whose entirety is so difficult for us to see. We use these metaphors constantly; the net; the web; the global marketplace in the global village; the designer gene;Gaia, the great globe itself, as a living being; global warming; nuclear winter.
2. The Prehistory of the Present
Emerging from the cloud of the Cold War, we now come to see world history in a different light. Big-picture historians such as William J. McNeill have re-envisioned the past in terms of a millennia-long movement toward globalization. We've been very fortunate to discover within the past century that the older notion of "diffusion" of civilization seems to be wrong–that civilized orders are not like the branches of a central trunk but rather like grass. Consequently it is less that civilization is a rare line that must be preserved and more that it is self-organizing, so that the more consciousness and creativity we can pour into the process the better.
Studies in comparative civilization and world system history indicate the convergence of the great world civilizations and show the need for their study in a synoptic way. David Wilkinson defends a definition of civilization that is communication-centered, focusing on connectedness rather than uniformity (which would require cultural unity). Cities whose people are interacting continuously–even if in hostility–thereby belong to the same civilization. This means, for instance, that we must regard the Christian, Judaic, and Islamic urban cultures of the Middle Ages as a single civilization, their religio-cultural differences rather to be treated as "provincial idiosyncracies constitutive of a larger social unity" than as demarcation points to be patrolled. By now we should recognize, remarks Wilkinson, that what historian Arnold Toynbee called a "future oecumenical civilization" is "not future but present, and indeed about a century old" (52).
Another consequence, certainly, is that cultures must no longer be studied in purist forms, constantly in danger of Rousseauistic hypostatization as forms of the "noble Other" to evil Western standardization—the noble savage idea. Nor should steering clear of this Charybdis have to require making a sacrifice of other traditions to the Scylla of Western-Culture-only. World cultural traditions must now be studied because they are us—not other—and indeed they have been so for about a century now, as Wilkinson says.
All these intellectual developments are growing in support of the idea that globalization is not simply the culmination of recent capitalist processes, nor of the development of industrialization over several hundred years, but rather emerges from the direction of the whole of human history. William Irwin Thompson is another seer of the big picture in history, presenting a notion of five strata of human organization. In explaining what constitutes the fifth stratum, Thompson employs the term "planetization" to describe the transition to a mentality or frame of consciousness that world society must strive to achieve if it is to avoid the self-destruction of the human race. For him what we call "civilization" refers to a distinct stage of the development of human organization, one made possible by the earlier stage of the agricultural revolution and the sedentarization of our species, but building on the ways of those ancient settled societies by instituting empires, founded on masculine allegiances and centered on the concept of justice–the abstract idea arrived at in the process of mediating between tribal claims in conflict with each other. As Aeschylus portrays in the Oresteia the founding myth of the civilizing order, justice is arrived at by Athena in freeing Orestes from the vengeance of the Furies, who represent the non-negotiable sense of right arising out of the order of blood. In conceiving of the idea of Justice–and along with it, then, the Good, the True, and the Beautiful–the civilizing order discovered the very idea of aspiration. Yet lurking in the linchpin concept of allegiance is the unavoidable notion of stratification and hence of the participation of only the few in this aspiring quest for the transcendent good.
Nonetheless, ironically, at the same time as the first flowering in poetic and legal consciousness of these new hierarchical civilizations, there arose the greatest non-stratifying forces and forms of aspiration the world has ever known–those living beliefs that comparatists call the "world religions," denoting by that rubric those religions not founded on gods promoted from tribal origins to supertribal status (Greece, India, West Africa, Mesoamerica) but rather on a central moral imperative: do justice to one another; love your neighbor as you would yourself; lead others on the noble path out of spiritual bondage. These creeds first grew rhizomatically, outward in all directions as wild vines grow by putting down their own roots, not by forced implantation. And after growing away from each other over two millennia, these religions are at this moment in the process of encountering each other and sorting out the possibility of rapprochement from the inevitable reflex of conflict.
But although Thompson and other observers have insisted that the world is in the process of changing into a new form, the order of civilization is not the whole story of this older form out of which the world is growing. The industrialization of the Western world brought in its own priorities, overturning and throwing into confusion the unequivocal ideals of the civilizing order and replacing them with the ideals of progress. It is this that academics term the modern epoch: based on factual knowledge, the careful measurement of a mathematically describable reality, government of by and for the people, improvement of the material standard of living. The modern nation state was founded on these ideals that emphasized a simplified definition of the good in order to have the greatest good for the greatest number of people, rather than the clearest and most shining definition of the good to which the people must genuflect.
It is against these "modern" industrial ideals that the recent movements of deconstruction and postmodernism have revolted most explicitly and energetically. In place of the ultimate authority of fact, these recent movements have emphasized the relativity of fact (the dependency of fact upon culture) and the ultimate uncertainty of measurement (here aided by the discoveries of quantum physics), and in place of ultimate trust in majority rule as guide to the general will of the people, they are more concerned with the danger of the tyranny of the majority. Interestingly, not even the postmodernists really want to attack the ideal of improving the material standard of living; although philosophers have questioned the self-interestedness and complacency behind this goal, none have suggested that instead we should all march together in the other direction.
Rather, Thompson says, as we move toward planetization we are moving away from the vicariousformation of identity, in which citizens could be satisfied with government by representation and by the advances of a few great men in society, specialists who were admired with unrestrained adulation—Edison, Carnegie, Roosevelt. In contrast, almost no one remembers the name of the inventor of the television, or of the electronic computer, or of the internet, despite the recent attempt of one fairly well-known political figure to claim that achievement for himself. The strange lust of our time to bring low any figures aspiring to such deification indicates in an inverted way the desire for all to participate fully in the world's doings and makings.
What are we moving toward? Let me see if I can maintain the parallelism I have been following while stating it my way.
- Individuation and the full realization of human potential;
- self-identification–no longer in terms of contrast and scapegoating non-members of the group;
- a sense of the dependency of all things on context, and as a living sense an understanding of the living, growing, changing nature of organic form in all entities;
- an innate and intuitive understanding of the paradoxical nature of reality, requiring an integration of the spiritual and the physical, the fluid nature of gender;
- and the formation of supra-political collective enterprises, voluntary undertakings for the good–yes, the improvement of the material standard of living, but already it is also the informational standard of living (Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but give him a computer and he will be frustrated and discontented for life), and already we have the vaguer term "quality of life" or Q of L, coined in recognition that the exercise of personhood depends on a host of factors not limited to a single quantitative measurement.
In the most wide-ranging and affirmative book on this subject yet, journalist Robert Wright further re-envisions history as an upward unifying process in Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. Wright claims "a kind of force–the non-zero-sum dynamic . . . has crucially shaped the unfolding of life on earth so far" (5), and that the unfolding of human history and culture has followed an analogous and related path. Non-zero is the term he uses as a charm to conjure a vision of the future. In zero-sum games, Wright explains, the fortunes of the players are inversely related–there is never enough good fortune for more than half the players, and often there is enough for only one. In non-zero-sum games, however, to quote Wright, "one player's gain needn't be bad news for the other(s). Indeed, in highly non-zero-sum games the players' interests overlap entirely" (5). He then goes on to a well-informed, versatile, charming, and I think quite justified survey of the whole of human history as crucially characterized throughout by just this kind of zero-sum game–a very serious kind of game in which people from unfamiliar and even opposing camps unite in the undertaking to make something good happen. That something good may be simply for the two of them–a kind of traders' agreement that will help them corner the market, whether in business or not–or it may be for the good in general.
The "core pattern" Wright follows in history he states thus: "New technologies arise that permit or encourage new, richer forms of non-zero-sum interaction; then (for intelligible reasons grounded ultimately in human nature) social structures evolve that realize this rich potential–that convert non-zero-sum situations into positive sums. Thus does social complexity grow in scope and depth" (6). What marks Wright as of such sunny disposition is his insistence that "over the long run, non-zero sum situations produce more mutual benefit than [does] parasitism. As a result, people become embedded in larger and richer webs of interdependence" (6).
Relentlessly optimistic though Wright is, he does recognize that "the current era has the aura of a threshold," that the "growing turmoil" in the world means "we are indeed approaching a culmination of sorts; our species seems to face a kind of test toward which basic forces of history have been moving us for millennia." He sees it as "a test of political imagination–of our ability to accept basic, necessary changes in structures of governance–but also a test of moral imagination" (8-9). If I gather rightly, he believes that just recognizing that the immediate future poses such a test of moral imagination is an important step. He continues:
So how will we do on this test? Judging by history, the current turbulence will eventually yield to an era of relative stability, an era when global political, economic, and social structures have largely tamed the new forces of chaos. The world will reach a new equilibrium, at a level of organization higher than any past equilibrium. And the period we are now entering will, in retrospect, look like the storm before the calm.
In this vision of a harmonious future world order, Wright is only reinventing the conclusion to which Donald Cowan came two decades ago in Unbinding Prometheus. Nonetheless, Cowan, Wright, and Thompson all agree that the current era is a decisive one, that the "destiny" which Wright trumpets so gladly can always be refused by a self-preoccupied human race.
3. Challenges and Opportunities
Thomas Friedman's bestseller book The Lexus and the Olive Tree is a responsible assessment of the dual world that is emerging in all corners as a result of economic developments. On the whole, he is positive about it. The pressure of wealth and the desire for it can do many good things. And above all the global economy wants to survive and grow. It therefore will be
- intolerant of intolerance—too counter-productive
- intolerant of organized thievery—the global economy will require the rule of law where it is to be operative; stealing property, cheating on stocks, and laundering money can no longer be the order of the day; regularized accounting must be established
- intolerant of bureaucracy
These three conditions combine to give the correct impression that the global economy is the liberal state writ large–it will bring the features that liberal states have sought to confer on their citizens: personal liberty and choice, literacy, education, standard of living, disestablishment of religion and progressively of every other distinction not related to work. Friedman's conclusion, delivered soberly and with lots of evidence, essentially backs up Francis Fukuyama's earlier book that was so decried by many, The End of History and the Last Man. The global economy will bring the liberal state to every corner of the world. It will be possible to fend it off and keep one's traditional ways, but at the cost of poverty and the diverting of the flow of the world's money.
The global economy also:
- leaves cultural questions to national governments–government costs too much; no help and no guns will be provided to local government to fulfill their demands
- requires everyone to learn English: the global economy will require this lingua franca, so to speak. Opportunity will depend on it.
- will go elsewhere if you shoot minority religious groups. Ethnic cleansing means no investment. War is not cost effective. The global economy takes the attitude that Gibbon said the Roman Empire took in its time: "To the poor all religions were equally true; to the philosophers all religions were equally false; to the magistrates all religions were equally useful."
The various cultures of the world envision their future, their being, and their relationships in ways incompatible with their future, their being, and their relationships. Gilbert Murray spoke of the inherited cultural conglomerate of the Greeks, referring primarily to Homer and Hesiod. The problem for the future of the globalized world is that the inherited cultural conglomerate is insufficient. The new reality is incompatible with long-held cultural self-perceptions.
Friedman speaks of "the golden straightjacket"—the pressure of money, development, and jobs to make people do it the American way or else. The efficiency aspect of the market will grow, and this means that the rich will get richer and the poor will not. But this does not result in a zero-sum society. He does admit, however that this means most regional cultures will be consigned to the status of museum exhibits.
Friedman's is the most informed of many writers who have posed the shape of the strange present in which we now live as global versus local. The images of the Lexus and olive tree are an improvement over the earlier book Jihad vs. McWorld; presumably we all would like to have a Lexus and an olive tree, but do not want McDonald's as far as the eye can see or a jihad—a holy war. Yet none of these images tells more than a partial truth. The beauty of the image of the olive tree masks the point Friedman is making that olive trees are primary things over which blood is shed:
Olive trees . . . represent everything that roots us, anchors us, identifies us and locates us in this world. . . . Conflicts between Serbs and Muslims, Jews and Palestinians, Armenians and Azeris over who owns which olive tree are so venomous precisely because they are about who will be at home and anchored in a local world and who will not be. (27)
Now one must grant that if globalization is carried out in a total absence of love and imagination and a McWorld is produced, we all might want to join the jihad. That seems to be the point of the recent popular movie The Matrix, where the technological control of all has advanced to such a degree that it produces an utterly false reality for billions existing in suspended animation, unable to have experiences at all, and the awakening from that state takes on the character of emerging from Plato's cave or of Buddhist awakening.
So the global economy brings challenges as well as promises, and we must not refuse to see both. A further set of promises and challenges exists in the promises of the electronic environment, as heralded by writers like Nicholas Negroponte, Being Digital. Most of Negroponte's examples demonstrate how the digital world of the "post-information age" will be replacing with electronic technology those few non-intimate human contacts that constitute our lives. For all palpable evidence, it will be not creating but supplanting community. "If your early-morning flight to Dallas is delayed, your alarm clock can ring a bit later and the car service automatically notified in accordance with traffic predictions" (212). Gee, that will be handy. "It would really be quite simple to brand your toast in the morning with the closing price of your favorite stock" (213). That might prove to be a bit hard to swallow..
Technophile authors often rely on the dangerous fantasy of a new unfallen generation to carry out their revolutions. "Children will read and write on the Internet to communicate, not just to complete some abstract and artificial exercise," writes Negroponte. "The Internet provides a new medium for reaching out to find knowledge and meaning" (202). But this vision is for little pint-sized movers and shakers, self-starters, xerox reductions of today's CEOs–the only audience Negroponte seems to be addressing most of the time.
The author speaks of "the harmonizing effect of being digital"—"digital technology [as] a natural force drawing people into greater world harmony"—which he ultimately attributes to the prospect of "a new generation . . . emerging from the digital landscape free of many of the old prejudices . . . [and] released from the limitation of geographic proximity as the sole basis of friendship, collaboration, play, and neighborhood" (230). Similarly, "the empowering nature of being digital" is again based on neophilia for that just so darn plucky emerging generation of e-kids. "As children appropriate a global information resource, and as they discover that only adults need learner's permits, we are bound to find new hope and dignity in places where very little existed before" (231). Negroponte, like many other idolizers of the digital but with better prose, has reincarnated that old quixotic delusion, the myth of the golden age.
The person writing this sort of thing knows little about human nature or the generational depth of human experience and community. We who are a little more steeped in nondigital humanity may knit our brows in sympathy for this emerging generation, which will have to repeat the history of the human race in discovering what is wise and what isn't. Such is the message of literature, and especially of the post-World War II novel, from William Golding's Lord of the Flies to Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, where a psychic friends network of all children born at the moment India attained its independence begins as the hope of the salvation of the new India and ends in petty and murderous rancor, apathy, and impotence.
And yet Negroponte is mostly right. On the whole the new communications networks will bring people together for peaceful purposes; they will cross national boundaries without even noticing them, so those age-old sources of division and violence will be ignored by those online. He is right when he says, "The true value of a network is less about information and more about community. The information superhighway . . . is creating a totally new global social fabric" (183). The positive character of the new electronic community will eventually emerge since it is designed to be for all people. In the transition era, however, the now, the character of that community will remain in question as long as the net is an insurgent thing, with some included, some excluded, some in the know, and some making end runs around others.
But in any case this new age is upon us now. What Karl Jaspers wrote in 1955 is impressive testimony to a steady development of the age to come since the 1940s:
It was the Second World War which first accorded full weight to the contribution from everywhere, to the globe as a whole. The war in the Far East was just as serious as that in Europe. It was in point of fact the first real world war. World history as a single history of the totality had begun. From now on the interim period of previous history appears as a dispersed field of unconnected ventures, as so many beginnings of human possibilities. Now it is the totality which has become the problem and the task. It ushers in a complete transformation of history. The decisive thing is that there is no more "outside." The world closes, it is the earth's unity. New threats and opportunities appear. All essential problems have become world problems, the situation is the situation of humanity. (quoted in Albrow 75)
Once again, here is my sense of the major new aspects of the good order are toward which this new emerging global age is tending:
- The end of mass man. All people demand participation in the life of this global age and will be satisfied with nothing less than full personhood as a participant. How this is to happen is still to be determined, but as a movement it has been underway for a long time. The German essayist Walter Benjamin has traced the prehistory of human liberation in the nineteenth-century origins of consumerism in Paris, in the display windows and the department stores. José Ortega y Gasset, often assumed to lie at the other end of the political spectrum, took exactly the same viewpoint and expressed it in a memorable, easily intuited few lines:
What do I mean by "the revolt of the masses"?
The parks are full of people strolling.
The best doctors' appointment books are full.
That is all.
- Instantaneousness and its consequences. In the past one always had to reckon with a time-distance ratio between the message and the messenger. Today there is no messenger, just messages, sent and received instantaneously. This means there is no more such thing as distance. It means everyplace is the same place. This is globalization.In the past one always had to reckon with a time-distance ratio between the message and the messenger. Today there is no messenger, just messages, sent and received instantaneously. This means there is no more such thing as distance. It means everyplace is the same place. This is globalization. How can we get away from everyone? Things we as a society have dealt with by suppression will no longer be able to be suppressed.
- Organicism—synergy as an aspect of everything: our technology, our work, ourmedicine, our interaction mith man and nature.
- Openness—becoming—No one is in control.
About these last two points I shall have more to say presently.
4. The Deep Strata
Wordsworth wrote in the 1800 preface to the Lyrical Ballads: "The poet binds together by passion and knowledge the vast empire of human society, as it is spread over the whole earth, and over all time." Poets have been ahead of us all along, imagining and addressing a global world for some time.
Globalization can be thought of in two ways in the literary tradition: as an instantaneous validity for all places and times, or as a discovery of passages and connections as a combination of cleverness, openness, and luck. We need to think our way into both these modes: they will emerge in the coming century in a slightly different way from the way they seemed in the 20th century, which had its own special traumas to deal with.
The first of these ways of the imagination is the instantaneous. For a scientific analogue we can look to nonlocality and the physics and philosophy of David Bohm. In the literary tradition it is often represented by magic, as in Shakespeare's The Tempest.
The second way is the way of local connections and passages. For this we must think of the new science of self-organizing systems, and then go on to think about an aesthetics and an ethics for systems that are in the process of making themselves.
Few books are more entertaining, deftly written, or ingenious in writing about self-organizing systems than Kevin Kelly's book Out of Control. In it he observes, "It seems that the things we find most interesting in the universe"–now–"are all dwelling near the web end. We have the web of life, the tangle of the economy, the mob of societies, and the jungle of our own minds. . . . The class of systems to which all of the above belong is variously called networks, complex adaptive systems, swarm systems, vivisystems, or collective systems" (21). These systems are also called distributed systems—Kelly finally takes to calling them "distributed being" (Kelly 22). These entities/patterns/collectivities are:
- decentralized—no following imposed control
- autonomous-in each subunit—within the constraints prearranged by the swarm
- connective, exhibiting a high degree of connectivity between subunits
- nonlinear, following an interactive, cycling, feedback-rich type of causality, "peers influencing peers"
Swarm systems, Kelly goes on to enumerate, have the benefits of adaptability, evolvability, resilience, boundlessness, and novelty. The apparent disadvantages are all traits of a vanishing factory age: what a swarm is not is optimal, controllable, predictable, understandable, or immediate. "Nonunderstandable" also means that authority is distributed: no one is in control, but all have a share in its life.
Kelly provides a beginning for the poetic imagining, the intuitive comprehension of our changing world system with this meditation:
The Atom is the icon of 20th century science.
The popular symbol of the Atom is stark: a black dot encircled by the hairline orbits of several other dots. The Atom whirls alone, the epitome of singleness. It is the metaphor for individuality: atomic. It is the irreducible seat of strength. The Atom stands for power and knowledge and certainty. It is as dependable as a circle, as regular as round. . . .
The internal circles of the Atom mirror the cosmos, at once a law-abiding nucleus of energy, and at the same time the concentric heavenly spheres spinning in the galaxy. In the center is the animus, the It, the life force, holding all to their appropriate whirling stations. The symbolic Atoms' sure orbits and definite interstices represent the understanding of the universe made known. The Atom conveys the naked power of simplicity. (Kelly 25)
But "the Atom is the past"; the "symbol of science for the next century is the dynamical Net":
The Net icon has no center—it is a bunch of dots connected to other dots—a cobweb of arrows pouring into each other, squirming together like a nest of snakes, the restless image fading at indeterminate edges. The Net is the archetype—always the same picture—displayed to represent all circuits, all intelligence, all interdependence, all things economic and social and ecological, all communications, all democracy, all groups, all large systems. The icon is slippery, ensnaring the unwary in its paradox of no beginning, no end, no center. Or, all beginning, all end, pure center. It is related to the Knot. Buried in its apparent disorder is a winding truth. Unraveling it requires heroism. (Kelly 25-26)
But also: "The network symbol signifies the swamp of psyche, the tangle of life"—Kelly has just referred to Darwin's "tangled bank" passage—"the mob needed for individuality" (Kelly 26).
On the strength of this train of images, I would like to end with a little exercise that professional scholars of Dante sometimes undertake: a reading of three cantos in concert, one from the Inferno, one from thePurgatorio, and one from the Paradiso. Dante's architectural and numerological genius makes this exercise sometimes the bearer of surprising rewards. I am going to twist the results to my own end, however, which is not to do Dante justice–an "unaccomplishable work," to use the language of these cantos—but to help us seekers of poetic truth in the contemporary secular world discern our path a little better—see a little better where we have come from, where we are struggling at present, and what our goal is.
Inferno 26 begins with a sardonic hymn of praise to Florence for having achieved fame in hell for its dazzling feats of theft and treachery. Climbing down the steep descent on his way to the center of hell, Dante the wayfarer sees an infernal landscape dotted with small, bright individual fires. Virgil explains to him that "Within the fires are the spirits; each is wrapped in what is burning him" (47-48; see 41-42). Dante sees a twin flame, however, and is told it contains the spirits of Ulysses and Diomedes, condemned for their treachery against the Trojans. Virgil trades on his respect for having spread Ulysses' fame favorably in the Aeneid by prompting Ulysses to tell Dante of his final voyage. Ulysses explains that the joys of home and family could not long overcome "the desire I had to gain experience of the world and of the vices and the worth of men." So he sets out on the Mediterranean, sailing relentlessly westward, beyond Gibraltar, "that narrow pass where Hercules set up his landmarks so that men should not venture beyond" (107-109). He delivers a stirring speech to the crew that he commands to do his will: "O brothers . . . to the brief vigil of our senses which is left, do not deny experience of the unpeopled world to be discovered . . . you were not created to live like brutes, but to seek virtue and knowledge" (112-120). Their "mad flight," as he calls it, takes them so deep into the Atlantic that they can see a mountain on the horizon, "higher than any I had ever seen." The implication is that it is Mount Purgatory. But "from the new land a whirlwind arose" and destroyed the ship, drowning Ulysses and his crew.
Inferno 26 may be read, indeed it has been read by Dante critics, as a kind of critique of the modern ageavant la lettre by a poet who could see the signs of its beginnings. From the Medieval view, the modern age issues from the ambitions of the man of pride; the rise of technology is his means to the realization of his ambitions, and the myth of progress and expansion was perhaps no more than a cover story to justify the enormousness of his appetite for preeminence. According to Martin Albrow, "the story of modernity was of a project to extend human control over space, time, nature and society" (7). "The impulse to overthrow, the energy of resistance, the determination to explore beyond known territories were key characteristics of modernity" (57). Dante's lucid poetic vision transforms Ulysses into a premonition of the conquistador of two hundred years later, a conquistador whose daring leads him to attempt to add the Afterlife to his conquests. His oratory is based on the greatness of man and his difference from the animals, but in the end it is a whirlwind, a bit of nature out of control, that ends his ambitious project forever.
Purgatorio 26
The dazzling, high-relief scene of Inferno 26 stands in sheer contrast to Purgatorio 26, where one is struck by the image of the net and is caught up in conversations between shadowy bodies (corpo fittizio, 12), all commenting on Dante the new arrival, like a new visitor to a chat room in which a conversation has been going on; they are amazed that he, unlike them, has not been caught in death's net (24); Dante is an anonymous visitor, uncertain whether to reveal his name; he observes the shadowy bodies' brief greeting to each other, "making haste and kissing one another, without stopping, content with brief greeting" (32-33); he compares this to the communication network of ants: "thus within their dark band one ant touches muzzles with another, perhaps to spy out their way and their fortune" (34-36). What we see very little of in hell is communication; there is virtually none of it that is done outside of the specially arranged conversations with Dante the visitor. Often it is physically painful to speak in hell, as it is for Pier delle Vigne; always it is new pain, new humiliation, an annoying distraction from eternal negative self-absorption. Hell is full of modern atoms. In Purgatorio communication is everywhere; shadowy conversations are being whispered all around the traveler. The souls here are freed of the body to an extent, yet they still occupy positionally the space of the body. Bodies exist in this virtual world to the extent that one can affect another. Dante, though still fully enfleshed so that his shape stops the rays of the sun, gets into the same spirit and says "when I had fed my sight on him." It seems to take entering this shadow world to get the work of love in the world to overcome the massive hold of self-interest on earthly souls. But these have lost the robustness of the pagan world; they look with great curiosity and much flutter of talk on any novelty; they are a community, but they are also on the move, though none so quickly as Dante; they are nodes in a network, a living organism in a shadowy way, the vivisystem of an ant colony; their life is a common life. These souls have particular need of separation from the body, for their incarnate experience of desire was their source of sin in life: these are the sexual sinners. And here no favoring is made between heterosexuals—here called "hermaphrodite," as if the pair made one body—and same-sex lovers; they are just moving on different channels.
This is of course the poets' canto, and Dante establishes a network of poets, meeting and thanking Guido Guinizelli for being the "father" of those who use the "sweet and gracious rhymes of love." Guido in turn points him to Arnaut Daniel, who he says famously is the better craftsman, il miglior fabbro. The net has become a relay of gratitude. There is also the network of prayers, for Dante is entreated to "say a paternoster for me" when he reaches heaven. Arnaut–"for his name my desire was making ready a grateful place." Arnaut replies in Provencal, the only other contemporary language used in the Commedia.Thus begins a theme enlarged on when Dante meets Adam later: namely the progress of human history as the proliferation of languages; the names for things being always changeable in human knowing; but language itself being a cause of rejoicing, the moreso for its variety and the multiplicity of its associations. Shortness of time; need for transformation. The time of transition—the coming century.
Paradiso 26
As we turn directly to Paradiso 26 we are aware of the environment of light that characterizes so much of Dante's heaven. Here the pilgrim's eyesight is temporarily dazzled by his attempt to look at the brilliant light approaching him which is John the Evangelist: he was curious to know whether, as legend had it, John ascended bodily to heaven like Jesus and Mary. The voice of John issues from the light and instructs him: "Until you have again the sense of sight which you have consumed in me, it is well that you compensate it by discourse" (4-6). Dante, who has learned considerably during his long journey, responds, "The good which satisfies this Court is Alpha and Omega of all the scripture which Love reads to me" (16-18).
In the three cantos together we see the pattern of, first, light, then shadow, then light, for representing the souls who dwell there. John's heavenly light is not the consuming fire of Ulysses but a fire so pure it consumes the sight of the curious.
The heaven of this poem also bears a strong resemblance to a university, however. Dante knows he is to be examined on love, the last of his three entrance examinations to the university of heaven after being examined earlier on faith and hope. John, his examiner, wants to know, "tell me also if you feel other cords draw you toward Him, so that you declare with how many teeth this love grips you" (49-51). And Dante responds in kind: "All those things whose bite can make the heart turn to God have wrought together in my love [and] have drawn me from the sea of perverse [torto, twisted] love and placed me on the shore of right love" (55-57, 62-63). This response merits his passing grade—and this being the last of his exams, he is given a general pass, signaled by Beatrice singing along with the heavenly court, "Santo, santo, santo!" (69).
It turns out, once his sight is restored, that he can see that one of the distinguished examiners who remained silent during his interrogation is Adam, "the first soul which the First Power ever created" (83-84). Adam is to be compared to Ulysses, for both in Dante's language have "transgressed the bounds," Adam by his sin, Ulysses by sailing in his final voyage beyond the straits of Gibraltar. A good and gratifying student, Dante has a question—four questions, actually—which out of curiosity he would like Adam to answer for him, and he says humbly, "you see my wish, and that I may hear you sooner I do not tell it" (95-96). Adam is gratified as any senior professor would be, and Dante notes "how joyously [that first soul] came to do as I pleased" (100-102). Adam repeats this theme of the unspoken communication, saying, "'Without its being told to me by you, I discern your wish better than you whatever is most certain to you, for I see it in the truthful Mirror which makes of Itself a reflection of all else" (103-107). These include such questions as we might want to ask the first man: how long ago he lived—that is, the age of the human race; and what language it was he spoke. This last question receives perhaps the most interesting answer:
The tongue which I spoke was all extinct before the people of Nimrod attempted their unaccomplishable work; for never was any product of reason durable forever, because of human liking, which alters, following the heavens. (124-29)
The inquiry turns to the Tower of Babel, its construction project having been presided over by Nimrod in Genesis. Babel often stands for the human project of building a supercivilization (I don't think I'm giving away any of Dan Russ's lecture later in this series). Adam glosses the Babel project by reminding Dante of the impermanence of human liking.
The canto in the Paradiso no longer emphasizes human works and process but rather the inner acts needed to grasp the whole of things. Despite the university format, they turn out to be acts of the soul rather than of the mind. The pilgrim receives an appropriate punishment of temporary blindness for attempting to grasp souls through mere curiosity, to know the truth about John, himself a sacred text, by turning him into a fact. We, likewise, cannot recover our sight about the future globalized world until we stop trying to know cleverly the lore of all the fascinating things before us and seek to understand it through love. Significantly, our pilgrim has to seek to know through discourse as long as he remains blinded.
This canto, then, is characterized by revealing the blindness of the attempt to know the facts without honoring the soul; by knowing that discourse is what one resorts to in the asbence of perfect vision; and by a vision of love, in which it is specifically stressed how many agents act together to draw one person toward the supreme love. Here the net is transformed, and we are to take this revelation to heart as a reminder of what all nets of desire are for, ultimately–to draw us from the sea of twisted love–consumerphilia, electronic fetishism, information worship, and the hybris of imagining oneself lord and master over an increasing empire of e-servants–and to place us on the shore of right love.
Works Cited
Albrow, Martin. The Global Age: State and Society Beyond Modernity. Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford UP, 1997.
Beck, Ulrich. What Is Globalization? Trans. Patrick Camiller. Polity Press, 2000.
Dante. The Divine Comedy. Trans. Charles Singleton. 3 vols. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1975.
Farb, Peter. Man's Rise to Civilization. New York: Avon, 1969.
Friedman, Thomas L. The Lexus and the Olive Tree. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1999.
Jaspers, Karl. Vom Ziel und Ursprung der Geschichte.
Kant, Immanuel. "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose" (1784). Kant: Political Writings. Ed. Hans Reiss. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge UP, 1991.
Wilkinson, David. "Central Civilization." Sanderson, Stephen K., ed., Civilizations and World Systems: Studying World-Historical Change. Walnut Creek, Cal.: AltaMira/Sage, 1995. 46-74.
Wright, Robert. Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny. New York: Pantheon, 2000.
© The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture – Permission is granted to copy and redistribute this lecture on the condition that the content remains complete and full credit is given to the author.


text: We recently went to Disneyworld and absolutely loved the dining plan. It was one of the best choices we made on our trip. Now we are considering going again for the Food and Wine festival and with that I am not sure if we should get the dining plan. Any suggestions from past F&W attendees? Thanks,


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Enter a UK place or postcode for local forecast
The seasonal forecast is updated every three months. Spring - March 1st, Summer - June 1st, Autumn - September 1st, Winter - December 1st.
Forecast Issued 31/08/2017
Important note about long range weather forecasts: It is considered impossible to say with certainty what the weather will be like more than a few days ahead in the UK. Long range forecasts on TheWeatherOutlook have not been independently verified, and we make no claims for their accuracy. A range of factors including seasonal computer models, recent weather patterns, sea surface temperatures and teleconnections are considered when making the forecasts.
Mixed early on but often unsettled during October and November with the risk of stormy spells. Quite mild but colder incursions in the north could spread southwards late in the season.
Temperatures are expected to be slightly above the long term average over the three month period.
Over the three month period rainfall levels are generally expected to be above average.
Above average.
Close to average. Wettest in the north west and driest in the south east.
First half
Quite changeable weather is expected but a north west to south east split is likely. In the south and south east there should be quite a lot of dry weather through the period, although some spells of rain are likely. The north, and particularly the north west, are likely to see more frequent spells of wet and windy weather. Temperatures close to average in the north but quite warm at times in the south east.
Second half
Rather changeable weather is likely to develop with unsettled spells pushing farther farther south at times. The driest and warmest conditions are still expected in the south with the north seeing the coolest and wettest weather. It could become very windy on occasion, particularly in the north west. Overall this period's temperatures are expected to be close to average in the north and slightly above average in the south.
Slightly above average.
Unsettled weather is predicted, bringing showers and longer spells of rain to all of the UK. Windy on occasion, particularly in the north. The best of the drier spells are likely to be in southern and central regions. Temperatures in the south should be close to or slightly above average, but around average in the north.
Often unsettled and windy or possibly stormy. Bands of heavy rain probably push across the country with brighter and showery spells in between. Temperatures close to the seasonal average.
Close to average.
Predominantly unsettled conditions, especially in the north, frequently bringing showers or longer spells of rain and the likelihood of very windy spells. The best of the drier intervals are expected in southern and central regions. Colder incursions are possible at times, especially in the north, but temperatures in the south should be close to or slightly above average.
The theme is expected to be an unsettled one with wet and windy conditions prevailing. Colder spells in northern regions could bring an increasing possibility of sleet or snow, especially over higher ground. At times colder weather could spread southwards. Temperatures are forecast to be close to average over the period as a whole in the south but possibly slightly below average in the north.
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text:
This programme provides comprehensive knowledge of the basic principles of telecommunications and computer communications, their applications in communications technology, and the basis of existing communications practices. Students will also be able to analyse and design advanced communication systems. The Honours programme provides students with advanced knowledge and specialization, as well as the training needed to handle independent project work.
Graduates will be qualified to take up employment as communications technologists and network administrators/managers in the communications industry.
Students pursuing this programme must successfully complete 90 credits as follows:
Choosing the first courses to get started
Students should consider initially registering for one or more of the following foundation level courses, which count towards qualification.
For enquiries about the programmes, please contact:
Dr Angus Wong 王建陽博士
Dr Steven Choy 蔡雙安博士
School of Science & Technology website


text:
Daniel Beekman
March 5, 2014
While the Twin Towers still burned, on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, Osama Bin Laden turned for help to someone he knew he could trust, a prosecutor said Wednesday just blocks from Ground Zero.
The Al Qaeda boss turned to son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the prosecutor said.
"He needed the world to know that his organization was responsible," Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Lewin thundered in an opening statement for Abu Ghaith's terrorism trial in Manhattan Federal Court.
Read more


text:
With its stock value at perilously low levels, Cumulus Media's fiscal 2016 results has gone under the microscope at online Wall Street advisor Capital Cube. The No. 2 owner of AM and FM stations was placed side by side with Entercom, Saga Communications, Salem Media Group and Radio One.
Here's what Capital Cube had to say about the company, which saw its shares hovering between 41 and 42 cents at Thursday's Closing Bell.


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CLARKS SUMMIT — The combination of an opportunistic offense and a big play of special teams helped Valley View hold off Abington Heights, 22-17, in a Lackawanna Football Conference non-division game Saturday, Sept. 24 at Comets Stadium.
"We knew it was going to be a hard-fought, physical, emotional game," Abington Heights head coach Joe Repshis said. "I give credit to (Valley View), they played very well defensively. They created opportunities and took advantage of them."
Valley View (2-3) fumbled on its first possession of the game, but fared much better the next time it had the ball.
Cougars quarterback Chandler Fuller, who rushed for 61 yards on 17 carries, scored on a 1-yard run to end an 11-play, 75-yard drive with 4:07 left in the first quarter. Jake Osborne connected with Ethan Carey for the two-point conversion to give Valley View an 8-0 lead.
On the Comets next possession, a 37-yard completion from Colin McCreary to Brandon Hardy down the sideline set up a 42-yard field goal attempt, but McCreary's kick fell well short.
Valley View's second turnover of the game, a bad snap over the head of Fuller, was recovered by Comets linebacker Owen Hivner at the Cougars 1-yard line. One play later, McCreary plunged in for a touchdown with 11:52 remaining in the second quarter. McCreary added the extra point.
The Cougars answered as quickly as they possible could.
Osborne returned the ensuing kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown and Fuller ran in the two-point conversion to give Valley View a 16-7 advantage with 11:36 left in the second quarter.
"My teammates blocked well and I just made a couple cuts," Osborne said.
Abington Heights (3-2) cashed in on Valley View's third turnover when Logan Hivner recovered a botched snap and Anthony Duboski scored on a 2-yard run. McCreary's extra point cut the Comets' deficit to two points with 8:37 remaining in the second quarter.
McCreary capped a 9-play drive with a 45-yard field goal to give Abington Heights a 17-16 lead with 7.6 seconds left in the first half.
Valley View's defense held Abington Heights off the scoreboard in the second half while limiting the Comets to 43 yards of offense.
After coming up empty on three drives in the third quarter, an interception by Osborne early in the fourth helped set up Valley View's winning touchdown when Fuller scored on a 16-yard run with 6:38 remaining in the game.
"It was a huge momentum swing for us," Osborne said. "It's a rivalry game and I'm just happy we were able to get the win."
An interception from Chase Combs and fumble recovery by Kyle Cwalinski in the final minutes of the game sealed the win for the Cougars.
Repshis believes the Comets need to take better care of the ball if they are going to be successful throughout the rest of the season.
"We want to keep possession of the football on offense and create turnovers on defense," he said.
Abington Heights will travel to play Pittston Area at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30 in a non-conference game.


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Monument of Destruction: Right Bank Outfall Drainage Project. Approaching the Drainage Issue Symptoms rather Causes. Big Projects (SCARP, LBOD and Now RBOD) Ignoring Sources of Drainable surplus. Ideological Division.
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273 KM Long
Disposal in Gharo Creek at Thatta district
282 structures
Stage –1 : 2271 Cusecs
Stage –2 : 3500 Cusecs ( Drain to be Constructed)
Stage – 3: Under discussion at Planning Division
No single Public Consultation
Hiding project related Information
Why Information sharing is Essential:
·Ensures transparency and accountability
·Gives space for wider public discourse and participation
·Pools knowledge base from both experts and local wisdom
·Corrects project/program at planning phase
Devastation of
Indus Link : 43 billion
Baran Nai : 45 billion
Lakha Range
Foothills: 76 billion
Baran Nai though Tunnel: 84
Finally RBOD: 14 billion
Transport drainage water from 32 drains
Saving of Manchar Lake from drainage water
Saving River Indus from Pollution
Why toxic drainage effluent disposed in Manchar?
Who was responsible?
What accountability mechanism is to deal with such kind of crimes?
Complete demolition
Of 75 historical villages
Dislocation of 20000 People
Indirect effect on 200
Villages and 50000
Increased women workload
Damage to Mosques
Damage to Roads, Electricity
& Water Supply
Burying the 5000 old
History: Site of Amri
Future Threat to the
Shrine of Qaladar Shahbaz
Danger to Fateh Ali Shah (Shrine of Ismailees)
Disconnecting Hill
Torrent From Indus
Playing with Nature
Convergence of Nai's
Future Flooding
Villages represent cultural emotions
Historical Right of settled piece of land
Putting Rupees value to every thing?
Involuntary Dislocation
No choice, No land to settle Where to Go?
Historical Water &
land Rights: Versus
Doctrine of Legality
Market Value versus Right to
Third Major Development in
Area of 1.5 Km wide
Discontinuation of 100 W/C
Leaving 50000 acres
land Uncultivated
15000 acres used by Drain
Discontinuing Aral Wah
Discontinuation of Inundation
Water sources and lift irrigation
Overflowing and Secondary Salinity
Declining Quality of Ground Water
Seepage will cause water logging and Salinity
Touching Drain to Indus River
Seepage and security of KB Feeder
Water Quality of Kenjhar, Hadero and Haleji Lake
Kotri Industrial Area Effluent
Sea Intrusion, Devastation for Indus Delta at Gharo
Declined water quality in Kenjhar, Haleji and Hadero reduce number of migratory birds
Overflowing of saline water & Adding Industrial effluent cause harm to fish
Toxic effluent destroy aquatics life
Benefit of upstream users
Loss of Downstream users mostly Poor
Inbuilt inequity in Project Design
Is there any link between:
Fresh water development work at U/S & Drainage work at D/S
Who Guarantees completion of work ?
Will it not end at D/S kotri and dispose in Indus?
What Experiences tell us (LBOD, CRBIP)?
No Fresh Water D/S Kotri
LBOD on Left Side
RBOD on Right Side
What do You Think about
Indus Delta and Coast from 50 year now?


text:
Geoffry Rush is one of Australia's greatest actors. In my opinion more talented than our other exports such as Nicole Kidman and Russel Crowe. And at least in his case is actually Australian...born and raised unlike many other's who have been adopted by Australia. Also Australian films are not below him, and he is a regular participant in other Australian theatre productions.
This man desverse all the credit and international recognition for his outstanding performance in the Australian film based Swimming Upstream...for which he won an AFI, the highest recognition in Australian film.
This man deserves not only a fourth Oscar nomination but a second win. And I am certain in the short future he will.


text:
The ACLU released video — posted on YouTube — of a Barstow Police Officer wrestling an 8-months-pregnant woman to the ground.
CBS2 and KCAL9 broadcast excepts of this video on Friday evening and Saturday morning.
On Sunday, the Barstow Police Department issued the following statement:
"The City of Barstow has reviewed the video link regarding Charlena Cook's arrest. It is apparent that Ms. Cook actively resisted arrest.


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We, the undersigned organisations gathered in Kampala at the International Criminal Court (ICC) Review Conference, are shocked by Israel's killing and injury of civilians carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza. We wish to express our sorrow regarding the loss of life and call on the international community to immediately take all appropriate measures in response to this unacceptable violence.
On 31 May 2010 Israeli forces opened fire against an international aid convoy seeking to bring humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip; more than 700 unarmed activists from over 40 countries were on board the 8-ship flotilla. The attack occurred in international waters and resulted in the killing of at least 9 persons and the injury of a further 60.


text: On Sun 05 Dec 1999, Michael Neuffer wrote: > Package: general > Version: N/A; > Severity: important Why is it important? > It looks like one alpha autobuilder is producing packages with > timestamps in the future. The system time on that machine should > be corrected. This has already been acknowledged by Chris C. Chimelis (whose machine was the culprit). In time the packages will be become "up to date" again (in about 10 days I guess :-), so I think it's safe to close this bug. BTW, it's probably better to simply report this to email@example.com ... Paul Slootman -- home: email@example.com http://www.wurtel.demon.nl/ work: firstname.lastname@example.com http://www.murphy.nl/ debian: email@example.com http://www.debian.org/ isdn4linux: email@example.com http://www.isdn4linux.de/


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SENIOR health figures are urging residents and local authorities to voice their opinions on the second wave of health changes on the horizon.
Following the controversial consultation on Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group's (CCG) phase one of the Oxfordshire Transformation Plan, members of Healthwatch Oxfordshire say residents need to be ready to question the second phase of plans.
During the health watchdog's board meeting on Tuesday night outgoing chairman Eddie Duller said: "At a time when we have had a third of our funding stopped by the county council we have been working very hard to try and translate all these big, complicated terms into plain English so that residents actually understand what these plans mean.
"It is absolutely vital that when this second phase of plans comes along for residents and service users to voice their opinion."
Mr Duller's successor Professor George Smith said he is determined to ensure that Oxfordshire County Council is more involved in the decision making process.
He said: "We know that phase two of the plans will be looking at primary care and community hospitals.
"The county council has not engaged fully in the process and when the second phase comes around it needs to be more than just consultees.
"I would urge the authority to come on board as a full partner in the second phase so it can really help shape the future of healthcare in the county."
The CCG has introduced the two phases of plans as a way of streamlining services to address a growing financial shortfall and the needs of an ageing population.
It aims to address the needs of an ageing population and staffing issues and avoid a £134m black hole in the budget by 2020/21.
Professor Smith added: "I think there are a lot of different options in terms of models of care that need to be thought about.
"For example with home care, we need teams of integrated care workers with professional registered nurses.
"That will mean more challenging and difficult cases can be dealt with in the home at a higher level, rather than the individual having to be rushed into hospital.
"And rather than think about closing community hospitals, we need to be looking at them as GP hubs that could provide services for big areas across the county."
A final decision on the first phase of the Oxfordshire arm of the STP, which includes closing 200 acute hospital beds and centralising stroke and critical care, will be made by the CCG on August 10.
A consultation will soon follow this decision, where the second phase of plans will be revealed in their entirety.


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Lot 2 Weston Falls, Neillsville WI 54456 $22,900
Features of Lot 2 Weston Falls Neillsville WI 54456
- Lots for Sale
- Status: Active
- Estimated Age: Not Available
- Est. Acreage: 1
- Est. Acreage: >= 1, >= 1/2
- Body of Water: Black
- County: Clark
- Property Taxes: $747
- Property Tax Year: 2016
- Listing Company: Clearview Realty Llc
Property Description for Lot 2 Weston Falls Neillsville WI 54456
Lot 2 Weston Falls Neillsville WI 54456 - Perfect Building Site For Your Next Home Or Cabin Right On The Black River! 1.53 Acre Lot W/ Electric At The Street!
Additional Features
Building and Construction
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Land Features
- Topography: Open, Rolling/Hilly, Wooded
- Zoning: Residential
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text:
Dick's Sporting Goods Announces Grand Opening Celebration at Crossroads Mall in Beckley, WV
Grand Opening Weekend special appearances by former West Virginia University quarterback Pat White and former NBA point guard Bimbo Coles
Oct 31, 2011, 09:02 ET from Dick's Sporting Goods
PITTSBURGH, Oct. 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Dick's Sporting Goods (NYSE: DKS), the largest U.S. based full-line sporting goods retailer, invites the community of Beckley to their three-day grand opening weekend. The store will open its doors on Wednesday, November 2 and begin the celebration with a ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday, November 4 at 8 AM at the retailer's new location at Crossroads Mall, 5475 Robert C. Byrd Drive, Mt. Hope, WV 25880 (304-252-3425). Special extended store hours will also be in effect for Friday (8 AM-10 PM), Saturday (8 AM-10 PM) and Sunday (9 AM-8 PM).
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110912/PH65977LOGO )
Dick's Sporting Goods has a variety of special athlete appearances and give-a-ways scheduled to celebrate the grand opening festivities. On Friday, the first customers through the door will receive a free adidas t-shirt while supplies last.
Saturday, for the first 100 customers through the door, Crocs will be giving away a free pair of adult Crocs (limit one per person and must be 18 years or older) and West Virginia native Bimbo Coles will be onsite from noon-2PM*. Coles played 15 seasons in the NBA and captured the bronze medal as a part of the 1988 US Olympic team.
Sunday's schedule will feature a Mystery Gift Card Giveaway for the first 100 customers, where unmarked gift cards will be handed out with varying denominations from $5 to one lucky $500 gift card (limit one per person, per household and must be 18 years or older). Also on Sunday, receive a free Reebok t-shirt while supplies last and former West Virginia University quarterback Pat White will be onsite from noon-2PM*. A three-time All-BIG EAST honoree, White holds the best record for a starting quarterback in WVU history and was named the 2008 West Virginia Amateur Athlete of the Year.
"Dick's Sporting Goods is excited to become a member of the Beckley community with the opening of our newest location," said Lauren Hobart, Dick's Sporting Goods Chief Marketing Officer. "Unsurpassed customer service and the best products in the industry are the hallmarks of our stores and we're excited to bring these traditions to Beckley. We look forward to becoming an integrated member of the Beckley community."
The Beckley location will be the retailer's sixth store in the state of West Virginia and their 476th nationwide.
Throughout the weekend, customers can sign up for the $1,000 ScoreCard® Shopping Spree, earn triple points all weekend by signing up for the ScoreCard® Rewards Program, and register to win great prizes from The North Face, SofSole, Crosman, or Michael Mauro. Additionally, there will be activities throughout the store including product demonstrations by industry experts from Crocs, Eagle Claw, Lowrance, and SofSole among others.
Visit www.dickssportinggoodsonline.com/Grand_Open/Beckley/ for more grand opening details and directions.
Dick's Sporting Goods is proud to be an active member of the communities they serve through the efforts of Community Marketing and Youth Sports programs. Dick Stack, founder of Dick's Sporting Goods, believed that sports play a vital role in teaching our children fundamental values like a strong work ethic, teamwork, and good sportsmanship. Stack understood that supporting the organizations that make youth sports possible is the best way to promote those values. Today, that legacy continues. Dick's Sporting Goods shares the same enthusiasm for and commitment to youth sports in our communities. This year, through its Community Youth Sports Program, Dick's Sporting Goods will donate thousands of coach's equipment kits to youth sports organizations across select markets -- reaching over a million athletes. For more information about Dick's Sporting Goods Community Marketing and the programs they offer, please contact Kyle Graves at firstname.lastname@example.com or visit http://dickssportinggoods.sponsorport.com/.
* Limit one autograph per person. Autographs are provided on a first-come, first-served basis and are only guaranteed to the first 250 people in the special appearance line on the day of the event only. Times and appearances are subject to change without notice. Some restrictions may apply. See store for details.
About Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc.
Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. is an authentic full-line sporting goods retailer offering a broad assortment of brand name sporting goods equipment, apparel and footwear in a specialty store environment. The Company also owns and operates Golf Galaxy, LLC, a golf specialty retailer. As of October 31, 2011, the Company operated 474 Dick's Sporting Goods stores in 42 states, 81 Golf Galaxy stores in 30 states and e-commerce web sites and catalog operations for both Dick's Sporting Goods and Golf Galaxy. Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. news releases are available at http://www.dickssportinggoods.com/investors. The Company's web site is not part of this release.
SOURCE Dick's Sporting Goods


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I am watching fox news less and less and the blaze more and more.
Same here. I used to watch Fox so often that their logo was "burned" into the lower left of our TV screen.
I'm hoping Blaze gets more conservative shows like GB and Wilkow. Wilkow has had great guests on. I DVR both programs.


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Originally published in the Lebanon Advertiser, May 13, 2015
A few days ago I sat at breakfast with a group of friends. We like to get together and talk about stuff. One had been at the Lebanon School band concert the night before. Inevitably, the conversation turned to how tough it is to keep things like music and art going any more in the face of declining funding of education.
I ventured that this is a travesty. "Funding for education should be our top priority" I declared. "I agree," said another in the group. "But then there are the folks who say welfare should be our top priority, or the environment. Every interest group is passionate that theirs should be the most important. They've got their lobbyists out there bidding for top billing with legislatures."
"Yes," I said. "That's why I think our debates should be about our core values."
"O.K.," said another, "so what are your core values?"
"One of them is that every one of our kids should have everything they need to be well prepared to take their place in the economy and society," I said.
"I agree," said my questioner. "So, that should include…" He piled on everything he could think of that kids need to have a top-rate education – some of them what we tend to think of as
"I'm playing devil's advocate here," he said.
"I recognize that," I said. "And these are exactly the debates we should be having locally, and at the state, and national level."
Indeed the debates taking place do reflect core values. The debate is about distribution of wealth, the size of government and the role of government in society and the economy. The terms of the debate as it applies to the role of government in education is raging across the country. In an article by Alice Ollstein of "ThinkProgress," we get a look at how this is playing out at the state level in several states, notably Wisconsin, Kansas, Louisiana and Illinois.
Wisconsin's governor Scott Walker has placed top priority on reducing taxes on wealthy citizens and corporations driven by his belief in trickle-down economics: The surest road to a strong economy is to free wealthy property owners and corporations from burdensome taxation, to unleash their money to invest in economic growth. His first bi-annual budget contained massive tax cuts based in this ideology. Another round of cuts is scheduled in his upcoming budget.
But there is a problem. His ideology has failed miserably. The nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau has informed him there is no rebounding economy. There is no new revenue at all. In his first two years in office, Walker has taken Wisconsin from a state with a $1 billion surplus to one with a $2 billion deficit.
He is determined to go ahead with the next round of tax cuts anyway, based, I assume, on the belief that the problem is not his ideology, but rather that he didn't cut taxes enough. He is now determined to retrieve the situation by slashing spending. He proposes to cut spending for higher education by $275 million, almost exactly the amount his next round of tax cuts will reduce revenue; this in the face of his determination to also spend more than a billion dollars on a new professional basketball stadium in Milwaukee. (Does that sound familiar? How about the new football stadium being built by cash-strapped Missouri, parallel with further cuts in spending for education?] Wisconsin's elementary and secondary schools are scheduled for a cut as well, at $120 million.
The Wisconsin State University system has already begun laying off hundreds of professors and staff. But other values are beginning to compete with Walker's agenda. The legislature soundly rejected his new budget. A majority of Republican legislators voted no, joining every Democrat in the legislature. A student movement called United Council of UW Students has mobilized opposition to Walker's cuts.
Meanwhile, in Kansas, Gov. Brownback's draconian cuts in taxes have so decimated the state's coffers, its public schools are closing early this year. They're out of money.
And in Louisiana, the state university system is considering declaring bankruptcy in the face of Gov. Bobbie Jindal's huge cuts in taxes on wealthy and corporate entities, consistent with the trickle-down ideology of his fellow governors. Students and their supporters have stormed the State capitol in opposition to Jindal's tax cuts. The Louisiana House of Representatives has passed a budget that erased more than $200 million of the governor's tax cuts. The governor threatens a veto.
Here in Illinois, our wanabee Scott Walker, recently elected Governor Bruce Rauner, has proposed a massive budget slashing program as a way of balancing the state's budget. This is accompanied by huge tax cuts for (guess who) wealthy and corporate taxpayers. Like Walker, he sees that as the way to prosperity.
Like Walker, Rauner's proposed budget was overwhelmingly rejected by the state House of Representatives. As in Wisconsin, members of Rauner's own party rebelled. Yes, I am aware that Illinois is in the midst of a major budget crisis. Rauner's formula for addressing the crisis is untenable, unless we are willing to become like Greece.
The Occupy Movement was the launching pad of a growing push-back against a value system which places highest priority on wealth accumulation by the already-wealthy. The campaign for the $15 minimum hourly wage is an outgrowth of that movement, as is the growing counter-campaign for economic and social justice and quality of life values.
Illinois Voices for Children is one organization pushing back hard against Gov. Rauner's agenda. Next week we will explore IVC's proposals for putting the state's fiscal house in order, based on quality of life values.
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know about Brain Disorders, call at 07932 162223
Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author.While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server.
International Conference on Brain Disorders and Therapeutics
August 24-26, 2015 London, United Kingdom
A Novel Hypothesis as to the Origin of Autism:
An Alteration in Biological Water Dynamics
Disrupts Proton-Coupled Electron Transfer and the
Organizing Function of CNS Fractones
Robert M. Davidson M.D. Ph.D. FAIS*
Ann Lauritzen, Stephanie Seneff,
Stephen D. Kette, Glyn Wainwright,
Anthony Samsel, and Sydney J. Bush
*Fellow, The American Institute of Stress
Physician and Medical Researcher, Kilgore, Texas, USA
Email: [email protected]
• THE GOAL: Apply a chemical biology, biophysical perspective to the
(a) pathophysiology and
(b) prevention of Autism, Schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's
• THE HOPE: To one day find a cure, or preferably, a prevention
• Hans Selye: Most diseases are pluricausal, highly-stereotyped, and
supramolecular in origin.
• TODAY: Let's focus on just 3 levels of biosemiotic organization:
Coherent Nested Hierarchy of Biological Signalling
There's A New Game in Town! It's Non -Linear!
• Chemical Biology is the gateway to Quantum Biology
• Medical schools need to teach new ways of looking at
(a) health at the molecular level
(b) underlying causes of diseases
• We've got to escape the trap of "linear thinking": the "magic bullet" mentality
"A pill or shot for every malady"
The Origin of the Fractal Dimension
Bipolarons represent hydrated electrons in low pH reductive environments
– Hydrated electrons represent the "fractal dimension"
– Redox potential and surface energy of water are pH-dependent
-- pH dependent speciation of e(aq's) modulates their ability to undergo Bose-Fröhlich-Einstein
condensation and might play a role in quantum consciousness
CNS fractones need a "universal sulfurylation factor" and 2-O-sulfate-L-ascorbate radical may
be the universal sulfurylation factor, facilitated magnetohydrodynamically by hydrated electrons to
supply sulfate to HSPGs
Fractones are functionally maintained as stem cell "niches" via autocatalytic radical
initiation, propagation, and comproportionation of the ascorbate radical
Conceptual Genesis of Our Hypothesis:
The Origin of The Fractal Dimension
(1) Pang, X.F. The conductivity properties of protons in ice and mechanism of magnetization of liquid water. Eur.
Phys. J. B 2006, 49, 5–23.
(2) Davidson, R.M.; Lauritzen, A.; Seneff, S. Biological Water Dynamics and Entropy: A Biophysical Origin of
Cancer and Other Diseases. Entropy 2013, 15, 3822-3876.
(3) Men, Z., Fang, W., Li, Z., Sun, C., Li, Z. and Wang, X. (2015). Hydrated-electron resonance enhancement O-H
stretching vibration of water hexamer at air-water interface. Optics letters, 40, 1434-1437.
Our Proposal for pH Dependent e(aq) Speciation
Mizuse, K. and Fujii, A. (2013). Characterization of a Solvent-Separated Ion-Radical Pair in Cationized Water Networks: Infrared
Photodissociation and Ar-Attachment Experiments for Water Cluster Radical Cations (H2O)n+ (n = 3–8). The Journal of Physical
Chemistry A, 117, 929-938.
Larsen, R.E., Glover, W.J. and Schwartz, B.J. (2010). Does the hydrated electron occupy a cavity? Science, 329, 65-69.
Our Proposal for a Universal Sulfurylation Factor
nonspecific mesenchymal reaction", which has also been referred to as the Sanarelli-
Shwartzman phenomenon.
2-O-sulfate L-ascorbate radical plays a central role in the "universal
Takebayashi, J., Kaji, H., Ichiyama, K., Makino, K., Gohda, E., Yamamoto, I. and Tai, A. (2007). Inhibition of free radical-induced erythrocyte
hemolysis by 2-O-substituted ascorbic acid derivatives. Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 43, 1156-1164.
Verlangieri, A.J. and Mumma, R.O. (1973). In vivo sulfation of cholesterol by ascorbic acid 2-sulfate. Atherosclerosis, 17, 37-48.
Cabral, J., Haake, P. and Kessler, K. (1998). Rearrangement of 3-Acyl Derivatives of L-Ascorbic Acid. Journal of Carbohydrate Chemistry, 17, 1321-1329.
from the Cassini Space Probe
Our Hypothesis: Dynamical Bidirectional 3-D Vortices
of Interfacial Water at the Interphase
A drop of soapy molecules and water can form
a rigid gel crystal that displays more facets
than any crystal ever observed–
a phenomenon called 'the Devil's staircase.'
Pieranski, P., Sotta, P., Rohe, D. and Imperor-Clerc, M. (2000). Devil's staircase-type faceting
of a cubic lyotropic liquid crystal. Physical review letters, 84, 2409-2412.
Our Hypothesis: Chiral Paramagnetic Induction
HomeotropicAlignment of Water at the Interphase
• Ascorbate radical may act as inducer, nidus, or seed to chirally and
paramagnetically-align biological water at the interphase [homeotropic
enrichment]. Consider a chirally and paramagnetically-aligned liquid-
crystalline matrix or "plasma" of spin-correlated radical pairs
• Interfacial water provides the physical basis for (a) chemotaxis and
allostery, (b) a non-metabolic "fuel" source for molecular motors, (c) the
ability to overcome intra- and extracellular "crowding" and thermal diffusion
(kT) problems, and (d) uniquely trapping and transducing ELF EM energy
from environment into charge separation and negentropy (-∆S)
• Exogenous Interfacial Water Stress (EIWS) is the disruption of normal
interfacial tension between water and biomacromolecules in vivo by
exogenous agents such as the Al³+cation --- represents the root cause or
initiator of inflammation and disease (Seneff et al 2015).
Long-Range Attractive Intermolecular Forces
NANOASSOCIATES: Konovalov has shown that sunlight/water/hydrophilic surface
sufficient to form nanoassociates of water (Konovalov et al 2014);
NEGENTROPY: configurational (conformational and vibrational) entropy loss
THIXOTROPY: pH-dependent gel-like "memory" of water (Verdel and Bukovec
PERCOLATION THRESHOLD: the entropic, hydration, lipid, protein, and sulfur
requirements for biological activity (Brovchenko et al 2006; Davidson et al 2013)
SELF-ORDERED CRITICALITY: Biophysical quantum coherent equipoise of the
CNS is disrupted by EIWS; molecular recognition, chemotaxis, and allostery are
lost in the presence of EIWS (Pal and Zewail 2004; Shaw et al 2014)
Fractals, Anisotropy, Hydrophobic Effect
• Fractal— geometrical scaling law from math and physics
• Anisotropy— order, alignment, e.g. birefringence on intravital
polarized light microscopy; e.g. loss of fractional anisotropy
on DTI-MRI precedes anatomic and behavioral
signs/symptoms of neurological disease (SDAT, ASD, MS,
• Hydrophobic Effect— Lum-Chandler-Weeks theory (Lum et al
1997) "size matters"; "order at the edge of chaos"; Bertholet's
classical experiments; Martin Gruebele's seminal "stretching
water" experiment
Exogenous Interfacial Water Stress Theory
Exogenous Interfacial Water Stress (EIWS) is the root cause or initiator leading to
inflammation and disease; EIWS is the initial common pathway to all disease (Davidson and
Seneff 2012; Davidson et al 2013; Seneff et al 2015)
CAVEAT: The surface energy and redox potential of water are pH-dependent. IWS subsumes
redox stress, i.e. the superficial grand potential subsumes redox potential
Al³+aquo cation is a prime example of EIWS; Myelin is a preferred target of Aluminium
toxicity (Verstraetten et al 1997); It's time to add Gadolinium to the list of EIWS sources
(McDonald et al 2015); both Gadolinium and Aluminum are neurotropic
EIWS precedes inflammation and immune activation (MIA and IL-6) which precedesAutism,
Macrophagic MyoFasciitis (MMF), Schizophrenia, SDAT, MS, SLE, etc,
EIWS is supramolecular, biophysically-pleiotropic, pluricausal, and highly-stereotyped
EIWS theory provides a biophysical explanation for synergistic toxicity
Dynamical combination of hydrated actin microfilaments, microtubules, and fibrils:
(a) exquisitely sensitive to EIWS,
(b) provides a biomechanical conduit for energy transfer between the intracellular and
extracellular matrix via proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET)
F-Actin has been shown to be associated with hypermobile water by Makoto Suzuki's group using
dielectric spectroscopy (Kabir , et al 2003; Wazawa, et al 2011)
According to the TOFT:
(Sonnenschein and Soto, The Society of Cells, 1999; Soto and Sonnenschein 2011)
the default cytoskeletal state is cytoproliferative and motile
Under the EIWS theory: the cytoskeletal state is controlled by gradients of interfacial water
tension at the interphase (Davidson, et al 2013); interfacial water stress subsumes redox stress
Under the EIWS theory: interfacial water exists in a metastable, dynamical state of equipoise in
a liquid-crystalline matrix, wherein the protein aggregates comprising the cytoskeleton are
modulated by and substantially "slaved" to the dynamics of interfacial water
Fractones have been referred to as stem cell "niches" and they are thought to regulate
cytoskeletal assembly and organize the ECM of the heart, gut, brain, and bone
marrow/RES. They have complex cytoarchitectures consisting of stem cells, progenitor
cells, supporting cells, and laminin-rich basement membranes (Hochman-Mendez et al
Frederic Mercier and his associates have studied neural stem cell niches and described
fractones as:
"particulate extracellular matrix structures that I previously characterized in both the
developing and adult brain". --- F. Mercier (personal statement)
"In the neural stem cell niche of the adult brain, I have demonstrated that fractone-
associated heparan sulfate proteoglycans serve as captors and activators of growth
factors to regulate neural stem cell proliferation."
Mercier, F., Kitasako, J.T. and Hatton, G.I. (2002). Anatomy of the brain neurogenic zones revisited: fractones and the
fibroblast/macrophage network. J Comp Neurol, 451, 170-188.
Polymerized Laminin is Hexagonal !
Is PolyLM the structural basis for CNS Fractones?
Fractal nature and hexagonal symmetry of polylaminin (polyLM) has been noted on
confocal fluorescence microscopy (CFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and
atomic force microscopy (AFM) (Hochman-Mendez et al 2014)
"SEM and AFM analyses revealed that the seed unit of polyLM was a flat polygon formed
in solution whereas the seed structure of LM was highly heterogeneous, intercalating rod-
like, spherical and spread lamellar deposits." (emphasis added)
"A search for the Hausdorff dimension in images of the two matrices showed that polyLM,
but not LM, presented fractal dimensions…" (emphasis added)
"…the intrinsic fractal nature of polymerized laminin can be the structural basis for the
fractal-like organization of basement membranes in the neurogenic niches of the central
nervous system." (emphasis added)
Structural Basis for the Organizing Functions
of CNS Fractones
Hydrated electrons, specifically bipolarons in low pH, reductive environments, represent the
fractal dimension. (Davidson et al 2013). Support for this proposal was found by Hochman-
Mendez et al 2014.
"…key signaling properties of laminin were preserved and even augmented after
the acid-induced assemblage, which was demonstrated mainly for neurons [8], but
also for other cells types as glial [9] and thyroid cells [19]." (emphasis added)
In low pH, reductive environments, fractones and hydrated electrons (bipolarons) provide:
(a) a water-mediated physical basis for chemotaxis and allostery of signalling molecules,
molecular motors, and,
(b) a coherent bidirectional electromagnetic "connection" or "conduit" for PCET between
the ECM, fractones, caveolae of the plasma membranes, the cytoskeleton, and
Fractone-Plasma Membrane- Cytoskeletal "Connection"
A coherent liquid-crystalline "connection" between the subatomic and cellular (mesoscopic)
levels of biosemiotic organization consisting of:
(a) Josephson-like QM tunneling effects, (b) hydrated electrons, (c) PCET, (d) mitochondrial
membranes, (e) cytoskeletal actin, (f) lipid rafts (caveolae) of plasma membrances, (g)
integrins, and (h) laminin-rich basement membranes
Cell morphology is highly-correlated with biomechanical, functional, hemorheological
properties of cells
Cellular polarization occurs when cell energy flows, either in centrifugal or centripetal
direction, in the resting and proliferative states, respectively
WHEREAS, the default cytoproliferative and motile state is typically kept in check, at
times, EIWS disinhibits and "unleashes" the default state
• GAGs and HSPGs need a UNIVERSAL SULFURYLATION
FACTOR, e.g. 2-O-sulfate-L-ascorbate radical might
preempt and supercede PAPS/SULTS
• CNS fractones need BOTH ascorbate and sulfur
• HSPGs have been shown to be low in sulfur at autopsy of
CNS fractones in Autism
Corley et al (2012); Mercier et al (2012); Meyza et al (2012); Pearson et al (2013); Mercier
et al (2011)
Autism as a Sulfate and/or Ascorbate Deficiency
MOUSE MODEL of Autism and a GUINEA PIG MODELof Scurvy
Jones-Ray Effect: biphasic concentration dependent surface enhancement; Riddick
Effect: biphasic concentration dependent zeta potential enhancement
A New Triad in Classical Autism: abnormal RBC shape, oxidative damage, β-Actin (Ciccoli
et al 2013); EIWS is very likely to precede the Autism Triad; Sulfate Deficiency may be a
cause of EIWS
A Plausible scenario: Sulfate deficiency EIWS Autism Triad Autism phenotype
SEM studies of RBCs by Bleau, et al (1975) suggest that Ch-S supplementation might
reverse the RBC morphological and hemorheological abnormalities in Autism
Both sulfate and ascorbate deficiency may represent synergistic consumptive sequelae of
Multiple Scales of Time and Space
"There's plenty of room at the bottom" – Richard Feynman (1959); both Feynman and Irving
Langmuir observed "like-likes-like" physical and biophysical behavior, a phenomenon familiar to
colloid chemists. Our blood can be thought of as a colloidal suspension that flows.
Medical schools need to teach a multidisciplinary vocabulary to accommodate the "new" science
of biophysics, soft matter physics, chemical biology, redox biochemistry, liquid-crystal chemistry,
magnetohydrodynamics, and quantum biology: this is where we will find the cipher…the Rosetta
EIWS – Exogenous Interfacial Water Stress
TOFT – Tissue Organization Field Theory
SCRPM - [electron] spin coupled radical pair mechanism
EPR - electron paramagnetic resonance
PCET - proton coupled electron transfer
CPET - concerted proton electron transfer
NQMT - nuclear quantum mechanical tunneling
KIE - kinetic isotope effect, mass independent KIEs
HFI - hyperfine interaction (electron spin - nuclear spin interaction)
DTI-MRI - diffusion tensor imaging magnetic resonance functional imaging; includes calculated
measures of [fractional] anisotropy and diffusion OF WATER !
[e (aq)] •+
[Asc 2-S] •ˉ
sGAGs/HSPGs/F-actin filaments
Autism/RBC phenotype
Hydrated electrons represent the physical basis for the "fractal dimension"
We propose pH dependent speciation of e(aq's) as a requirement for quantum consciousness
Autism and Other Brain Disorders may represent Sulfate and/or Ascorbate Deficiency Syndromes
which sensitizes via EIWS to inflammation, microvascular ischemic, hemorheologic, and
thrombohemorrhagic phenomena
Autism may represent an EIWS-induced loss of self-ordered criticality and molecular recognition
which leads to maternal immune activation and autoimmunity
Autism may be result from EIWS-induced disturbance of a CNS fractone function, anywhere along
the cytoskeletal energy "connection" between mitochondria and CNS fractones
The Autism Triad may be explained in terms of sulfate and ascorbate deficiency, both of which may
represent synergistic consumptive sequelae of EIWS
Fractones of the brain, heart, gut, and bone marrow require a "universal sulfurylation factor" and
we have proposed the structure for such a factor, i.e. the 2-O-sulfate-L-ascorbate radical
Conceptual Genesis of Hypothesis:
The Fractal Dimension
Pang, X.F. The conductivity properties of protons in ice and mechanism of magnetization
of liquid water. Eur. Phys. J. B 2006, 49, 5–23.
Davidson, R.M.; Lauritzen, A.; Seneff, S. Biological Water Dynamics and Entropy: A
Biophysical Origin of Cancer and Other Diseases. Entropy 2013, 15, 3822-3876.
Our Proposal for a Universal Sulfurylation Factor
Takebayashi, J., Kaji, H., Ichiyama, K., Makino, K., Gohda, E., Yamamoto, I. and Tai, A. (2007). Inhibition of free radical-induced
erythrocyte hemolysis by 2-O-substituted ascorbic acid derivatives. Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 43, 1156-1164.
Verlangieri, A.J. and Mumma, R.O. (1973). In vivo sulfation of cholesterol by ascorbic acid 2-sulfate. Atherosclerosis, 17, 37-48.
Cabral, J., Haake, P. and Kessler, K. (1998). Rearrangement of 3-Acyl Derivatives of L-Ascorbic Acid. Journal of Carbohydrate
Chemistry, 17, 1321-1329.
Our Speculation: Frequency-Locked Vortices?
• A cubic lyotropic liquid-crystal of surfactant and water demonstrated an
infinite number of facets to suggest "Devil's Staircase" frequency-locking
(Pieransky et al 2000)
• Are hydrated electrons involved?
• Are spin-correlated, frequency-locked, hydrated electrons involved? In
• Is a frequency-encoded hydrated electron the singularity at the apex of
vortices? In vivo?
Pieranski, P., Sotta, P., Rohe, D. and Imperor-Clerc, M. (2000). Devil's staircase-type faceting of a cubic lyotropic
liquid crystal. Physical review letters, 84, 2409-2412.
The Origin of the Fractal Dimension
Protomeric/electromeric cyclic hexamer radical-cations of water (bipolarons) represent hydrated electrons,
and vehicles for PCET in low pH, reductive environments, in vivo
Hydrated electrons, i.e. electrons solvated by cyclic water hexamers, represent the "fractal dimension", the
singularity at the apex of 3-D dynamical vortices of biological water, both in vivo and in vitro.
The need by HSPGs of CNS fractones for sulfate, implies that CNS fractones have a need for a "universal
sulfurylation factor"
2-O-sulfate-L-ascorbate radical may be a universal sulfurylation factor which is attracted by water-mediated
chemotaxis to CNS fractone, faciliated magnetohydrodynamically by dynamical vortices of hydrated
electrons, so as to affect the sulfurylation of HSPGs
2-O-sulfate-L-ascorbate radical has a kinetically-transient lifetime sufficient to act as a post-translational
"sulfurylation factor" of GAGs and HSPGs
In liquid-crystalline lyotropic phases of biological water at the interphase, the transulfurylation transition-state
would be stabilized by on-water heterogeneous catalysis, PCET, and by facile formation of resonance-
stabilized cyclic trigonal bipyramidal intermediates which can undergo Berry pseudorotation.
Our proposal might be repeated through-out life to maintain functionality of fractones as stem cell "niches" via
autocatalytic radical initiation, propagation, and comproportionation of the ascorbate radical.


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87 Acre Farm in Norwich for sale or lease to purchase
The Vermont Land Trust is seeking a qualified farm buyer for an 87 acre farm in Norwich, Vermont. Due to the generosity of a VLT donor, this farm is available for an outright purchase or lease to purchase. The purchase price is $295,000 and the lease term will not be longer than three years. The farm includes a well maintained farmhouse in excellent condition, several outbuildings, and barns. The farm's location, other maps, and photos of the buildings are at: http://www.vlt.org/initiatives/affordable-farmland/Norwich-farm
VLT will hold an open house at the Norwich farm on November 19, 2011 from 10:00 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Jon Ramsay Director Farmland Access Program Vermont Land Trust 1337 Garven Hill Road Greensboro Bend, VT 05842 (802) 533-7705