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9 p.m. Friday, September 21. Off Broadway, 3509 Lemp Avenue.
Chuck Prophet | The Jans Project Off Broadway March 22, 2012 In Austin a few days before his semi-annual stop in St. Louis, Chuck Prophet sat outside a Mexican restaurant and said, "You know, I think we finally cracked that town." Maybe. Or maybe it will take another twenty years. Or as he recent ... More >>
Jon ScorfinaAs major record labels have struggled to adjust to the new digital landscape, independent labels have thrived by sticking to the tried and true demand for vinyl. We caught up with Kate Eddens, a former employee of both Thrill Jockey records and Vintage Vinyl, at her south city hom ... More >>
On Friday and Saturday night, the Focal Point in Maplewood hosted Rough Shop's annual Holiday Extravaganza. Guest stars such as Steve Carosello, Toby Weiss, Chris Grabau, John Horton and Kate Eddens joined the band to sing holiday originals and cover favorites from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Dar ... More >>
8 p.m. Friday, December 10, and Saturday,
Just Because It Was Christmas
(Perdition Records)
(Welcome to In the Studio, a section on A to Z that spotlights -- what else? -- local artists in the studio. If you are also recording/recently recorded -- or are a studio engineer/producer and working with people -- email me, with the phrase "In the Studio" in the subject heading.) Toby WeissKate ... More >>
Berry's time in the trenches is starting to pay off
Two local music heads are forming a Finishing School of Rock

subset: commoncrawl


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Katie Holmes and her lil' fashionista are on the lookout at Barneys New York in Beverly Hills. Plus: David Beckham, Nicole Richie, Gwen & Gavin and more
Credit: Ramey
Published: Monday May 24, 2010 | 05:00 PM EDT
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Looks like it's a girls' day out! Naomi Campbell, Jennifer Lopez and her baby girl, 2-year-old daughter Emme, prepare to dock at La Voile Rouge beach club in Saint-Tropez, France, on Friday.
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RUB researchers make bio-based solar cell breakthrough
Researchers at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum have created a bio-based solar cell capable of generating a continuous electrical current of several nanowatts per sq cm. The new approach avoids damage to the tapped photosynthetic cells, an issue that has plagued previous attempts to harness nature's "power plant." Read More
Solspaces project to test year-round solar heating system
Researchers at the University of Stuttgart are preparing to test a solar heating system capable of long term storage as part of "Solspaces," a three-year project that kicked off in March 2012. The heating concept uses a solar thermal system in conjunction with a sorption tank for storing heat from solar collectors throughout the warmer months that can then be released when the mercury drops. Read More
Shimizu's Luna Ring to beam solar energy from the Moon
A Japanese firm has come up with the idea of constructing an array of solar cells around the Moon's equator to harvest solar energy and beam it back to Earth. The Shimizu Corporation proposes creating a "Luna Ring" using materials derived from lunar soil along its 11,000-km (6,800-mile) equator. The plan involves starting with an array that's a few kilometers wide and eventually increasing that to around 400 km (250 miles). Read More
Batteries. We buy them at the store, use them up, and throw them away without much thought. In reality, however, batteries are remarkably complex electrochemical devices that are continually evolving. The latest example of this comes from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where researchers have invented an advanced lithium/sulfur (Li/S) cell that offers a unique combination of energy storage, power, recharge speed, and survivability. Read More
Amphiro's a1 self-powered water and energy meter
There's nothing like putting real time water and energy usage information in your face to change people's shower habits, and that's just what Amphiro's a1 self-powered water and energy meter does. It connects between the shower hose and a handheld showerhead and, like the Driblet, generates the electricity required to power it from the flow of water running through it. Read More
Silicon/nickel water splitter could lead to cheaper hydrogen
Photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells can use sunlight to sustainably split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but efficient PEC materials tend to corrode rapidly in use. A Stanford research group has been studying this problem, and has found that depositing a thin layer of nickel atoms on a silicon PEC electrode allows it to operate for over 80 hours with no sign of corrosion. Read More
Among the concepts put forth for decreasing the range anxiety associated with electric cars, one is to embed electrical coils within the asphalt. This would allow vehicles to wirelessly draw power from the road as they traveled, although it would also involve having to tear up existing roads to install those coils. An alternative could be on its way, however. Scientists at North Carolina State University are developing a system in which power could be transmitted from stationary roadside stations to mobile receiver coils in cars passing by. Read More
Joining the ranks of devices designed to harvest energy from ambient electromagnetic radiation comes an electrical circuit from researchers at Duke University that can be tuned to capture microwave energy from various sources, including satellite, sound or Wi-Fi signals. The researchers say the device converts otherwise lost energy into direct current voltage with efficiencies similar to that of current solar cells. Read More
"Ene-Farm" home fuel cell moves into a condo
Panasonic and Tokyo Gas have continued joint development of their "Ene-Farm" home fuel cell unit, which became the world's first commercialized fuel cell system targeted at household heating and electricity generation when it went on sale in Japan in May 2009. The latest model is aimed at use in condominiums and features a number of modifications to ensure the units meet the more stringent installation standards placed on those buildings. Read More
A new product called Neurio has been designed to help people better control their domestic energy usage by monitoring home appliances. The product also allows users to be reminded of domestic tasks involving appliances. In cases of smart appliances, Neurio can detect behavior patterns and program appliances to meet specific requirements. Read More
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Iowa Theater
416 Main Street,
416 Main Street,Keokuk, IA 52632
No one has favorited this theater yet
Contributed by Bryan Krefft
Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
kencmcintyre on May 24, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Some of the oral histories on keokuk.com state that the Iowa theater burned to the ground. I didn't post the link here as you have to sift through a great deal of nostalgia to find the references to the Iowa.
Joe Vogel on February 27, 2013 at 7:38 pm
This house was still called the Hippodrome as late as 1922, when the June issue of Stone & Webster Journal said that the Baker-Dodge Theatre Company was remodeling its Hippodrome Theatre in Keokuk at a cost of $20,000. It might have been at the time of this remodeling that the house was renamed.
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Stuart Kirsch is professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan. He works in the Pacific and the Amazon on indigenous rights and the environment, including long-term research and advocacy with the people living downstream from the Ok Tedi mine in Papua New Guinea and political refugees from West Papua, Indonesia. His research interests include: the corporation, social movements, discourse about 'lost tribes', mining, political ecology, political violence, property, and ritual and myth.
Kirsch is the author of Reverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis of Social and Environmental Relations in New Guinea (Stanford University Press 2006), which examines how the Yonggom draw on their cultural resources to interpret and respond to contemporary political challenges, including pollution from the mine, their participation in new forms of exchange, and the predicament of being divided by two nation-states. The book asks whether culture continues to matter in the face of such overwhelming power disparities.
His new book examines how corporations respond to critique. Mining Capitalism: The Relationship between Corporations and their Critics (University of California Press 2014) compares mining conflicts in Melanesia and other parts of the world. It analyzes the strategies corporations use to counter opposition from NGOs and indigenous groups. The book argues that understanding the dialectical relationship between corporations and their critics provides an antidote to the politics of resignation.
A much-needed contribution to understanding our contemporary historical moment.
—Kim Fortun, author of Advocacy after Bhopal
Engaged anthropology at its very best.
—Anna Tsing, author of Friction
A vivid account of the globalization of nature.
—Arjun Appadurai, author of Modernity at Large
Professor Kirsch has consulted widely on indigenous land rights and the environment, including compensation for damage caused by nuclear weapons testing in the Marshall Islands, conservation and development in the Lakekamu River Basin of Papua New Guinea, and mining and property rights in the Solomon Islands. He has also collaborated with Amerindian communities in Suriname on a project concerning the impacts of bauxite mining and as an expert witness in a case on indigenous land rights at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. These projects are the subject of his next book, Anthropology beyond the Text: The Politics of Engaged Research, which he began writing during a sabbatical in Winter 2014.
Professor Kirsch earned his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991 and taught at Mount Holyoke College for four years before coming to the University of Michigan in 1995. He has held visiting research appointments at the University of Cambridge, Goldsmiths College in London, and Yale University. He also participated in collaborative research projects on cultural property rights and on extractive conflicts in Latin America. Kirsch has received fellowships and grants from the program in Agrarian Studies at Yale University, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Economic and Social Research Council in the United Kingdom, Fulbright-Hays, a Michigan Humanities Award, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, a Royal Anthropological Institute fellowship for "Urgent Anthropology," the Social Science Research Council, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. At the University of Michigan, he teaches undergraduate courses and graduate seminars on anthropology and history, engaged anthropology, environmental anthropology, the anthropology of property, indigenous political movements, and the Pacific.


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You better watch out.
Issue flick comes across as a PSA for film preservation.
Londoner's chicken and chips, as captured by the low-res spy camera hidden in our glasses. We need new glasses.The Londoner2909 Thomas Ave. 214-979-2333 Dude Factor: 9, or Clive Owen, on a scale of 1 (Daniel Radcliffe) to 10 (Keith Richards). I'm pretty much the exact opposite of an Angloph ... More >>
At last, you can finally see for yourself at least a little bit of the bit Sacha Baron Cohen shot in Carrollton last summer, as the so awfully NSFW red-band Bruno trailer's now making the rounds. As mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the local stuff comes from the phony Richard Bey talk show sequence ... More >>
Back in June, Michael Granberry wrote in The Dallas Morning News that "at one of those big office parks on International Parkway" in Carrollton, "a whole bunch of people got really mad" and stormed out of the taping of a television show. His 23-year-old son related the story to Granberry: Sac ... More >>
Sacha Baron Cohen's howlingly funny mockumentary goes looking for America
It took us a long time to realize this, but the printed word is dead. We know what you really want: videos. Well, that and Bible Girl, and if we can ever figure out a way to put those things together, hey, you will be the first to know. Among today's moving items is a deleted scene from a movie you ... More >>
I'm not gonna lie. I've been to the Premier Athletic Club once, and I ran out when I saw a certain D staffer naked in the jacuzzi. But I coulda sworn it looked just like the place behind Borat in this photo.Last night—by which I mean, this morning—I went to the North American debut of Bo ... More >>
The loudest, boldest comic actor around takes an endless victory lap
In Madagascar, the wild things romp, then roam


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SEE YOU IN AUGUSTA: Camilo Villegas, known as "Spiderman" because of his contortionist way of looking at putting lines, may now be known as a legitimate threat in major championships.
After barely making the cut, he ended up tied for fourth to earn an invitation to next year's Masters.
Most of the field at the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills looked at a 36-hole finish on Sunday as a marathon. Villegas looked at it as an opportunity.
Under extreme conditions, on a treacherous golf course that surrendered just three sub-par scores for the tournament, the Colombian with the long hair and athletic moves put together rounds of 67 and 68. He finished up the 67 early in the morning before posting the 68.
"I'm proud of myself," he said. "It was tough weather and it hurt to miss those par putts, but I'm just proud of myself the way I hung tight."
HOW SWEDE IT IS: Fredrik Jacobson didn't make much of an impact on the tournament, finishing 12 shots behind Padraig Harrington in a tie for 24th.
But the Swede did earn his way onto Sunday's highlight reel, acing the 193-yard 13th by dropping a tee shot just short of the hole and watching it roll into the cup.
"The wind was really starting to blow, so I tried to hit a low 4-iron - that was the strongest iron I had in the bag," he said. "It started off perfect, and I said `Be as good as you look,' then when it landed, I called out `Go in the hole!"'
Jacobson's playing partners were amused by his mimicry of the traditional gallery yell, especially when it worked.
"The guys just cracked up when it went in, especially since I called it," he said. "I just needed something good to happen.
Jacobson said it was his fifth ace in competitive play and it was the first in a PGA Championship since Olin Browne in 2006.
DIVOTS: There were 13 sub-par scores total in the first two rounds, 10 in the third and nine in the fourth. ... Curtis had three bogeys the first 40 holes of the tournament, then had three in a four-hole span to come back to the pack. ... The final round of the PGA Championship a year ago at Southern Hills in Tulsa had temperatures over 100 degrees. The high never hit 70 Sunday at Oakland Hills. ... International players won three majors this year as Harrington took the British Open and PGA and Trevor Immelman of South Africa won the Masters. It was the first time they won more than two since 1994 when South African Nick Price won two (PGA and British) and Spain's Jose Maria Olazabal (Masters) and South Africa's Ernie Els (U.S. Open) each won one. ... Foreign players won the two previous PGAs at Oakland Hills: South Africa's Gary Player in 1972 and Australia's David Graham seven years later. ... Steve Flesch made the only final-round birdie at 18, hitting an approach from 112 yards into the cup at the par 4. ... Just like the 1996 U.S. Open at Oakland Hills, only three players finished under par.
AP Sports Writer Rusty Miller and freelance writer Dave Hogg contributed to this report.


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Even experienced pilots use RealFlight to keep learning and polishing skills when they can't be at the field. The RealFlight Version 7 Transmitter Interface Edition makes that practice even more valuable. With the included interface, you control the sim with the same R/C transmitter you take to the field! Plug the interface into your transmitter and your computer's USB port. A set-up window helps you quickly configure RealFlight to be controlled by the same radio you use to fly real models.
You'll find one of RealFlight's most popular features, the "Reset/Rewind" button, on the interface unit. After a crash, push the Reset button to get right back into action. Or hold it down to go back to any point during your last flight for an instant do-over. Enjoy the realism and features that have made RealFlight #1. New enhancements such as multi-level Challenges, Heads-Up Display, Training Aids, RealPhysics™ technology, and superior graphics and just a few reasons why RealFlight has been R/C's best-selling flight sim for over 16 years. RealFlight flies more like "real life" than any other R/C sim. Reach ever-greater levels of expertise using your favorite radio and this interface-equipped edition of the world's #1 R/C flight simulator!
FEATURE VIDEO: RealFlight Version 7 RC Flight Simulator Product Overview
Posted by Bob O. on 25th Oct 2014
Few things in life are what you expect. RF7 is one of those things. I used this product and my newly purchased Futaba T6J to get myself ready for flying my 1400mm Waco.
I've had no issues with the product. It installed easily, and it connected via USB to my radio without an issue.
The product has really helped me with my "stick" skills on the radio. I've flown many of the aircraft that are offered, including the Aircraft add-on paks from previous releases of RF.
Great product!
Posted by DesertDrifter7 on 8th Jul 2014
If this program even comes close to matching flying an RC airplane it was well-worth the cost. You get to fly planes at a variety of airfields using the transmitter you will use in actual practice. It helps train your hands, eyes, and brain to react appropriately with the plane in all possible directions and attitudes. I am guessing it will help new pilots from experiencing the "6-second phenomena."
Posted by Dan Gross (Grossman56) on 6th Jul 2014
Smartest money I have invested in this hobby is this Flight Sim.
Takes away the crunch factor to a large degree. I have the version where I can use my own radio. Its really something when you are flying for real and all of a sudden you realize that you are mimmicking what you were doing in the Flight Sim. Don't forget to hit the website and get the free downloads
Posted by Edward Gelb on 16th May 2014
I have now read the manual and subjected the software to FAI and AMA competition patterns using various aircraft.
Unfortunately even using dual/expo I find that it is impossible to complete other than the basic maneuvers.
I was able to get various four channel Aircraft to hold inverted flight but the software could not track the true altitude and the software crashed the flight.
Complex maneuvers like "Three Axial Rolls, Stall Turns, Three Turn Spins, Cuban 'S", Figure "M" were incredibility hard to emulate. The smoothness required in these patterns was not attainable.
Simple maneuvers like an Immelman and Double Immelman, Split "S" and Horizontal Eight were attainable.
So in conclusion, this is great software for learning basic aircraft control. As mentioned it will sharpen your reflexes and definitely help you to avoid the optical illusions of flight and reverse orientation.
Good purchase and worth the moneys.
Posted by Michael R. on 15th May 2014
This software is fantastic. It allows me to use my transmitter and "fly" the planes I have on my list to buy.
I have literally saved several thousand dollars in damages by letting this software teach me instead of teaching myself by trial, error, and crashes of real aircraft. It allows me to stay sharp with my transmitter and the type of plane I own, even when the weather won't let my fly outside. This RF7 is worth every penny.
Posted by Edosan on 24th Mar 2014
First of all if you have a Tactic TTX transmitter you must also order the MOCK TTX transmitter. Ok, with that said.
Problems are a cumbersome instruction manual. Notebook computer screen is too small. I had to hook my Dell Inspiron to my Panasonic 61" LCD because the ultra micro's like Aircore are just too small given a laptop screen size.
You loose site of the micro planes at a altitude of 60 ft on a laptop.
Basically the product is good for training purposes. My advantage was that I was in RC 40 years ago and just wanted to brush up.
Forget sending an email to Tech Support .. they just do not answer. You should call them. They are very helpful.
Ability to read the Adobe instruction manual (all 350++ pages) using RF-7 program HELP command produced a code 13 error. Tech Support will contact Adobe and find out why.
With this software you have the chance to set up the transmitter in two Methods. As they call it Method 1 is where you use your Transmitter as you would in the field. Method 2 is to convert the Real Flight Transmitter into a Real Flight Software Radio.
There is no easy explanation in the manual of how to switch between the two methods. Tech Support had to give me the correct clues to do this.
One of the features of Real Flight is that they have programmed into the software many, many RC models and set up the parameters for easy of flight simulation. This works to some degree and is "Cute".
Bottom Line, I will now attempt to set up the FAI and AMA competition patterns and see how the software performs. This is the real test of the software.


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|01 Oct 2010
Malwarebyte freezes my Pc after scan?
Hi Guys,
I have issues with Malwarebyte software since I installed it. I don't know why but everytime I perform a scan with the anti-malware, it finds nothing and when I clicked the exit button to leave, it starts to freeze and it takes like 5 min for the result page to appear so my computer need to be restart. I don't get BSOD, it only freezes and the mouse cursor sticks, you know!
Also, do you know another free alternative to clean my pc and protect. I have Panda global protection AV 2010 right now. It is good but I need another protection for malware, trojan, ect. I bought this computer 1 month ago with win 7 (64bit) and since that, all I get is freezes & freezes/crashes. I'm so tired of fixing this computer, I need help
Thanks in advance,
My Computer Specs:
Windows Version:
Windows 7 Home Premium
System type:
64-Bit Operating system
Processor version:
Intel ® Core (TM) i7 CPU 930 @ 2.80GHz 2.79GHz
Installed Memory (RAM):
Hard Drive Capacity:
Video Card:
Graphics card manufacturer: ATI
Graphics Chipset: Radeon HD 5700 Series
Dedicated graphics memory: 1024 MB
Sound Card:
Manufacturer: Creative Sb-X-Fi
Version 1.10.13
DirectX Version: 10.0
Manufacturer: Gigabyte
Model type: X58A-UD3R
|My System Specs
|01 Oct 2010
Issue Finaly Resolve
The problem was with Panda Global Protection 2010 (Anti-virus). It wasn't allowing Malwarebytes so I had to do these five easy steps:
1. Open Panda Global Protection
2. Click Firewall
3. Under the tab Rules that says: Specify which program to access the internet (or network), click "setting".
4. Now, everywere you see the word "Malwarebytes" in the list, you will have to click - Allow inbound & outbound connections.
5. Click Ok and you're done.
I hope it can help someone. Thanks guys.
|My System Specs
|01 Oct 2010
Win7 Enterprise, Win7 x86 (Ult 7600), Win7 x64 Ult 7600, TechNet RTM on AMD x64 (2.8Ghz)
Thanks for posting your solution
If it helps somebody else, it will be appreciated
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Annual Gifts of Love Shoot
Annually, Metacon Gun Club will be hosting Shoots to benefit the Gifts of Love food pantry in Avon, CT. Gifts of Love serves the entire Farmington Valley and is the only food pantry in the area.
Since 2009, we have raised nearly $10,000 in cash and countless donated food items.
2014 Shooting event dates:
Will be released later in the year.
*In order to participate in IDPA at Metacon, you MUST be pre-registered
*Class III shooting requires a pre-checkout to participate
See the 2012 flyer as an example.
Gifts of Love in .PDF format


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U-Mobile DealerNet Portal
Mobile City Online
Responsive Car Dealer Script. Mobile-first, highly customizable, open source car listing script for auto dealers.
Registered Agent by Northwest Registered Agent LLC
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iNew Mobile - iNew Mobile Android Phone - iNew Mobile Phone Online Store
Free World U, A Free Online pre K-12 Program
TheMobileTracker.com | Free Mobile Tracker Service | Track A Mobile Phone Online


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Call us today at 1-877-433-9249
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Service »
Teens Help Give Cemetery New Life
Share (pictured above: Volunteers work at Happy Hill Cemetery last Thursday.) More than five dozen Mormon teenagers aided in the arduous task of reverting a historic African American graveyard to some semblance of itsRead More »
Black Achievers Gala will be Thursday
Share (pictured above: Attendees will hear from Derwin Montgomery.) The Winston Lake Family YMCA will present its 17th Annual Black Achievers in Business & Industry Awards Gala on Thursday, May 8 at 6:30 p.m.Read More »
Editorial: Letters to the Editor
Share Thank-you To the Editor: The Chronicle's 29th Community Awards Banquet on Saturday, March 22 was an outstanding event of which the Winston-Salem office of Legal Aid of North Carolina felt privileged to beRead More »
Editorial: Continue to celebrate Black History
Share Why should we continue to celebrate Black History Month? (pictured above: Oscar Micheaux, first black movie director who produced "Up From Slavery" in 1919.) King Adinkera of the Akan people of West AfricaRead More »
Girl with big heart plans holiday meal
Share (pictured above: Wynter Guess (center) with (from left) her godmother Elanor Phipps, Rev. Dr. George Banks and her parents Willie and Tamela Guess.) Winston-Salem resident Jermaine Cohen faces many challenges in life. TheRead More »


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STM Bags
STM Bags Velo 2 hands-on: Papa's got a brand new bag19 July 2013
It's not often that we're moved to write about a bag, but having spied the STM Velo 2 back in May, we quickly got one to play with. We've been carting around the mobile office in it since and it's quite the bag. The STM Velo 2 is a shoulder bag. It's... >>


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Two and a half years later. A friend said so today. Is it really? Two and a half years since I shared a joke with you? Two and a half years since you made me think? Two and a half years since the text message came that told me you were gone? Yes. It is two and a half years later.
Your friend died. We memorialized him today. Forty years your elder and yet he outlived you. We remembered you and thought what you might have said or done. I was sad. I knew him less than you, but I was sad because I know you would have wept. And joked. I was sad because I missed you.
Your picture is in my office, on a shelf. You're smiling. You're in other offices, too, all over this place. I would say "like a guardian angel," but no one who knew you would call you that. Maybe you're our guardian devil, or our trickster at least.
I hope you would be proud of me. Proud of all of us. I'm still working on the questions you made me ask myself when I met you, four and a half years ago.
It seems like a gyp when I think about it now. I only got to know you two years. How unfair. How wonderful. Because I got to know you at all.
Even Shakyamuni Had 'First World Problems'
We use the phrase 'first world problems' to denote inconvenient things that happen to relatively affluent and comfortable people. There's even a meme for that. We use it as a joke when something trivial makes us sad. On the one hand, it's telling us to get over ourselves.
On the other, it's reinforcing that our sense of relative security. After all, not everyone is lucky enough to have 'first world problems.' Just think of those Tibetan monks and nuns who, though being tortured for years, never lost compassion for their jailers. Now those are real problems. Think of how strong that made their practice. How in the world are we supposed to cultivate a practice like that?
But even Shakyamuni had 'first world problems.' He was a prince, remember. His life was as affluent and comfortable as it was possible to be for his time. Yet he was not immune to suffering.
In fact, it was precisely because of his affluence that the problem of suffering bothered him so deeply. He had been given everything a person of his society might want, yet he was not free from the dukkha of birth, old age, sickness, and death.
Many of us now living in relatively wealthy, safe countries have almost anything a person of our society might want. We live like royalty of previous ages, yet we want more. And we are not free from the dukkha of becoming and unbecoming.
I often wondered if my comfortable life was a hindrance to my practice. The suttas say the gods do not seek liberation because they do not have enough suffering to motivate them. Even with all my small struggles, I wondered, am I living in a small heave-realm on earth? Are we all?
No. Affluence is not the problem. Ego is. Wondering if we're 'too comfortable' keeps our mind fixated on our 'selves' and reinforces ego. Attachment, aversion, and, most insidious of all, delusion is the problem. Although we have so much, we are still beset by tanha, craving. This is the problem.
Shakyamuni had a radical solution. He walked away from it all. He cut off his hair, gave up his fine robes, left his palace, and became a wandering aesthetic. He almost starved himself to death before he saw that was not the eay either.
We should not envy those who have cultivated their practices through the adversities of torture, poverty, or illness. We should respect them and pay homage to them, but recognize that the Buddha would never have prescribed that as a method of practice.
Nor should we regret that we were born into more fortunate circumstances. That is just craving of another kind. We should use those circumstances to support our practice and to help others as much as we can (those are the same thing, to my mind). Even though we have much, we can still crave for little.
Finally, we can recognize that even we silly people with our 'first world problems' are capable of enlightenment. Perhaps even more able than people in starving, war-torn countries who have never heard the Dharma. We can be grateful for our good fortune. We, of all people, can help others the most, if stop worrying about ourselves and practice!
Buddhist 'Theology'? Yes, No, and Sorta.
Can or does Buddhism have 'theology?' Well, yes, no, and sorta.
If one interprets theology in the strictest sense, going back to the roots of the word, 'theo' for god or the divine and 'ology' for study of, then the answer depends on how we define god. If God is capital 'G,' the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Moses, the omnipotent, omniscient creator of all things, then the answer is no. Buddhism has no reference to such a singular, personified deity. Some Buddhists, such as Nyanaponika Thera, have even concluded that such a deity is incompatible with the Buddhadharma. I am not so sure.
Even if one broadens one's understanding of the Abrahamic God a little, as many modern Jews, Christians, and Muslims do, to encompass some ineffable, divine basis of reality, I would still be inclined to say no. Because even when monotheists broaden their understanding what of God is, their traditional religious histories of what God does remain fairly stable, although the methods become more allegorical and metaphorical. And, no, Buddhism has no reference to those things which the Abrahamic God is purported to do or has done, such as create the universe. In Buddhist cosmology, the universe is generally considered both beginningless and endless. The Buddha also cautions that this is not a question we should waste our time on.
Conjecture about [the origin, extent, etc., of] the cosmos is an inconceivable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it. – AN 4:77, from Skill in Questions: How the Buddha Taught by Thanissaro Bhikkhu p. 292
If we interpret the nature of gods, small 'g' and plural, or divinity even more broadly conceived as a sacred basis of reality, then certainly Buddhism has much to say on this matter. After all, it was born into Vedic culture, the precursor of modern Hinduism. The notion of gods, ghosts, devas, demons, and other supernatural beings was a forgone conclusion. Hinduism itself is a centered around these gods. However, in Buddhism (not Hinduism) these gods are not central to the Dharma, but rather just another form of existence subject to it.
Buddhism does not deny that there are in the universe planes of existence and levels of consciousness which in some ways may be superior to our terrestrial world and to average human consciousness. …Yet, according to Buddhist teachings, such higher planes of existence, like our familiar world, are subject to the law of impermanence and change. – "Buddhism and the God-idea" by Nyanaponika Thera
The gods do not play a soteriological role in Buddhist religions, even though they often appear as characters in Buddhist scripture. Therefore, if we use these gods to understand 'theology' in Buddhism, I can, at best, say that Buddhism sorta has a theology, but it's not very important.
However, in western religions theology is generally considered very important. Perhaps it is merely an intellectual curiosity to the critical religious studies historian, but to the religions themselves it is a very big deal. Theology is both how they interpret what is and moralize what ought to be. Yet the divide between the twin academic disciplines of Religious Studies and religious Theology is entrenched. And it has left the academic study Buddhism strangely imbalanced in the west.
Scholars all over the Americas and Europe have the opportunity to engage in the study of Buddhism as an object, that is, from the historical critical perspective of Religious Studies. However, they have precious few opportunities to engage with it as a subject for constructive worldviews. Among Abrahamic religions, particularly Christianity, this latter task is traditionally taken up by the seminary. It is part of the training of clergy and theologians. While the religious historians have welcomed Buddhist scholars for the past several decades into the west's most prominent academic institutions such as the University of Chicago, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, there has been no corresponding opening of arms (either warm or begrudging) to Buddhist practitioners. In fact, Buddhist scholar-practitioners who both study (as object) Buddhism and practice (as subject) Buddhism have been regarded with a mildly hypocritical suspicion. (See Charles Prebish and Rita Gross on this topic.) There was almost nowhere for Buddhists to go, so to speak, to academically study the Dharma in the west.
Buddhist universities have been around since the 1950's, when second-generation Japanese-Americans (nisei) founded the Institute of Buddhist Studies in Berkeley as little more than a study group for Jodo Shinshu Buddhists. It is now part of the Graduate Theological Union of affiliated seminaries. Naropa University in Boulder, CO, was founded in the mid-1970's by Tibetan teacher Chogyam Trungpa. It was the first to offer degrees beyond Buddhist Studies, in fields such as psychology and literature. There have been a few others since then, including my own alma matter and current employer, University of the West.
These schools tend to follow either the IBS model and stick to religion or the Naropa model and offer a slightly more secular education, similar to Jesuit institutions. In both types, Buddhist scholar-practitioners finally found academic homes, though such schools had their own drawbacks. In general, they are smaller and less prestigious that the older, well-established, well-resourced Religious Studies departments of major universities. If one really wanted to become a name in Buddhist studies, it was still at least somewhat advantageous to squelch one's theological leanings and maintain a historical critical stance.
Even in the Buddhist universities, there was plenty of talk about the Dharma, but very little about so-called Buddhist theology, due to the problematic nature of the word. That began to change slowly, as those prestigious Buddhist Studies scholar-practitioners in the Religious Studies departments of major universities, who had both a both more nuanced view of the meaning of theology and a deep understanding of the Dharma, gained enough credibility (and tenure) to step out on the limb.
This trend culminated in 2000 with the publication of an anthology titled Buddhist Theology: Critical Reflections by Contemporary Buddhist Scholars, edited by Roger Jackson and John Makransky. In it, Jackson, Makransky, and other scholars make a credible argument for the appellation of 'theology' to Buddhist. Other scholars, such as Rita Gross and Musashi Tachikawa have also taken up the question in separate works. Sadly, in the fourteen years since, Jackson and Makransky's anthology remains the only book-length treatment of the subject (and it is sadly lacking in practical topics). My exploration of their perspectives yielded the following synthesis in a paper I composed this past spring:
Gross defines Buddhist theology as "the self-conscious reflections of recent Western converts to Buddhism who also have professional training and interest in the construction of religious thought." This definition owns the necessity of coming up with a term for the constructive acts of Buddhists within their own religious tradition as particularly important for those of us who wish to discuss these topics with others of western religious traditions. When we call it 'theology,' western religious professionals know what we mean, even if our fellow Buddhists may not. (Gross, p. 155-156) The term may hardly be necessary in certain eastern contexts. It certainly doesn't mean that Asians cannot 'construct religious thought' or engage in theology, as Tachikawa demonstrates.Therefore, it is not yet a sufficient definition of Buddhist theology.
Tachikawa and Gross share many of the same terms in their call for a Buddhist theology, including "self-conscious" and "constructed." Buddhist theology must engage religious practice with contemporary issues. It must also "possess a method communicable to others,"(Tachikawa, p. 8) which is also why Gross proposes use of 'theology' over alternatives like 'dharma-discourse,' 'dharmology,' or 'buddhology.' Both Gross and Tachikawa also point out that Buddhist theology must work from within and engage the tradition. This is not merely 'philosophy,' which Gross regards as personal and open to being idiosyncratic, but an endeavor in which "one considers oneself to be working within a given system and under its authority."(Gross, p. 156-157) Tachikawa characterizes this difference as part of what is "recognized from the outset," such as the existence of the Buddha, which the religious philosopher is free to discard, but the Buddhist theologian is not. (Tachikawa, p. 8)
Cabezón, in contributing the Jackson and Makransky's anthology, defines theology as "roughly, a normative discourse, self-avowedly rooted in tradition, with certain formal properties." This would seem to fit both Gross and Tachikawa's description. From here, Cabezón claims that "'theology' can be meaningfully modified by the adjective 'Buddhist,'" (Cabezon, p. 25) rendering Buddhist theology as: normative, reflective, and constructive discourse self-consciously rooted in the Buddhist traditions with formal properties defined by the systematic study of those traditions.
-From "Buddhist Practical Theology: A Literature Review," by Monica Sanford, 2014
From this perspective, it seems clear that there is such a thing as Buddhist theology. It hangs on the wider reading of theology as "the more strictly intellectual interpretations of any religious tradition, whether that tradition is theistic of not." (David Tracy in Roger Jackon's chapter) Under this interpretation, any religion can and almost every religion does have its own theology, regardless of what they call it.
That begs the question, other than making ourselves intelligible to scholars and theologians of western religions, as Gross indicates, what exactly is the point of having a Buddhist theology? Why not just keep calling it Dharma? Isn't that good enough?
Well, my jury is still out, but I'll close with a few thoughts. Yes, we have Dharma, a perfectly good word for the truth as taught by the Buddha. We should own that word, be proud of it, and use it wherever applicable. I can't always claim that what I do is Dharma, however, as I am not the Buddha. Being subject to attachment, aversion, and delusion, I know the Dharma only through the glass darkly. But I don't think theology is the same as Dharma. Rather, theology is an approach or way of doing Dharma. Theology is a systematic study of not only the Dharma, but the Buddha and Sangha as well, that helps us understand, interpret, and apply those teachings to our everyday lives. I can do theology and it helps clear up that hazy view of the Dharma when I do.
The Dharma itself will guide our approach to theology. Indeed, Thanissaro Bhikkhu's Skill in Questions can serve as just this type of theological guide. In this sense, Buddhists have been doing theology for a long time. That's what the Abhidharma is, after all, but the Abhidharma has become codified and fixed into its own set of scared texts. No one does abhidharma anymore, lest they arrogantly usurp the mantel of those early Buddhist masters. (So far as I know. Correct me if I am wrong.)
It is only our encounter with western religions that has given us a new word, a flexible word, one in which all Buddhists can participate, be they scholars, clergy, laypeople, masters or beginners. For this reason, I believe the notion of Buddhist theology is eminently worth our consideration. Is there Buddhist theology? Yes, in my humble opinion. And we need more of it.
Stories I Tell Myself and Other Confessions…
Most of my life is true. The rest is stories that I've told myself for so long that I've forgotten if they were true or not. I only remember telling them to myself. Like the story of how I got my first black eye when I was five (my brother and a baseball bat were involved). Part of that story involves going to kindergarten then next day and impressing the tough kids with my shiner. We don't have photographic evidence of that, and I can't remember what they look like, but one seemed short, stout, and outspoken (Ernie?) and the other tall, thin, and calmer (Bert?). Sometimes there are flashes of images, light, half remembered smells, but not enough to account for every detail of the story. A few I know are lies, but I believe them anyway. Sometimes that's important because it protects that little piece on the inside that we think might fall out if we don't keep our hand over the hole. But the lies don't fit right, not like the other stories, even the forgotten ones. They rattle around until I reach in to take them out, hold them up to the light and think "Huh? I had no idea that was still in there. I told that lie when I was thirteen." But most of my life is true.
I have conversations with people who aren't there. Not just that usual mental rant at my absent boyfriend/mother/coworker for the thing they've done wrong now. This morning I was making oatmeal in the kitchen and explaining to my boyfriend's cousin why bowing to the Buddha isn't 'idol worship.' Not that she'd asked. Not that she was there. She's updating her Facebook feed from a summer trip to Israel between her sophomore and junior year of college, which is why I was thinking of her (and religion) while I was making oatmeal. I've done this for my entire life. I explained quantum physics (badly) to Isaac Newton and why we only get to see one side of the moon to William Wallace. Anytime I didn't understand something, I'd pretend to explain it to someone else in my head until I had it worked out. Whenever I was sad (often enough then, less often now), I would tell someone about it and they would listen and ask only the right questions. It's not precisely like having an imaginary friend. More like an imaginary entourage.
I like being alone. This is hard on my boyfriend because he likes being with me. I like being with him, too. It's great because we're both introverts and we can be introverted together. But sometimes I also like being alone, traveling alone, taking a nap in an empty house. I enjoyed being single. Sure, sometimes I was lonely and horny and couldn't do anything about it. Sometimes I'm still lonely and horny when I can't do anything about it (like in committee meetings or driving on the freeway). I also enjoy being in a relationship. It has perks (perk #1: my boyfriend, who is my hero; perk #2: love and all that stuff). It's a qualitatively different sort of happiness. I wouldn't trade it. And I still like being alone.
I think most people are basically good and I don't like them anyway. Not specific people. I like the people I meet specifically. We get along very well. I love their stories. They are all so interesting. That's why I like being a chaplain. I hear the most fascinating stories (that I can't share with anyone, which is frustrating as a writer). But I don't like 'people' in general. I love ordering pizza online, self-checkout aisles at the grocery store, automated kiosks at the movies, buying car insurance without an agent. I make my boyfriend call the apartment complex when we need maintenance. Otherwise, I would just live without that dripping faucet or creaky door. If there's a line, I don't join. If there's a crowd, I go the other way. People are noisy and they suck my energy like vampires. They let their children shout in restaurants and use English improperly. But when I talk to them, they becoming fascinating because they all have stories, which come alive with the innovative grammar of unique dialects. I learn that they are trying so hard to be and do good and getting it wrong sometimes, like me. We get along very well when they become specific persons to me. But I still don't like people.
I think life is shit and that's okay. I call it cynical optimism. I mean really, what were you expecting? That life wouldn't be shit? Of course life is shit. Birth sucks, being a kid sucks (I particularly hated that part), puberty sucks, the rat race sucks, getting old sucks, getting sick sucks, being hurt by other people sucks, and to top it all off, dying sucks. Oh, and other people we like dying sucks, too. But that's all okay because we can deal. At some fundamental level, we can all deal and manage to be happy anyway. Isn't that fantastic? No sarcasm here. I really think that's absolutely fantastic. I'd call it a miracle if I weren't too cynical to believe in those. It's brilliant, really, perfect in a way. We have everything we need to make life not suck, but sometimes it's like having all the parts to a piece of Ikea furniture and none of the directions. That sucks. And isn't it grand that we get to figure out how to get to put it together ourselves? I mean, it could be anything. How brilliant.
I think the Buddha may never have existed. His story may be entirely made up and his teachings actually the compilations of dozens (hundreds?) of different authors. But I don't mind. I think all stories have truth in them, especially the fantastical ones. It's not a factual sort of truth. It's something subtler and deeper. I believe in Frodo, and Yoda, and the Doctor (but not Santa Claus). I've learned great truths from between their greater fictions. Of course, there's a lot of actual evidence that Siddhartha Gotama (he has a name, you know) was an actual person. Scholars basically agree on this, and that he was called the Buddha and revered as a great teacher during his lifetime. But that's just a story, too. If I only barely believe the stories I tell myself about my own life, why would it bother me if this one wasn't (mostly) true either?
PS – Written stone cold sober. And I have not been diagnosed with a mental illness. In fact, most of my friends think I'm one of the sanest people they know. Suckers.
Where I Come From
Family is a peculiar form of karma. Whether I believe in rebirth or not, whether I believe that something in my prior life guided me to this one, whether I believe that those forces shaped who I have and will become, I believe in the karma of family. I don't disbelieve the other, but the jury is still out. (Ask me again in my next life.)
Looking through old photos on Father's Day, I reflect on the karma of my family. I see my grandparents as adults in midlife, my aunts and uncles as children, my parents as crazy teenagers, my brother and I as babies and toddlers. We live in this delusion that the 'I' who is now is the 'I' who has always been and will always be. "Be in the now," they say, but inexpertly applied that simple direction cuts us off from our past and future. Be in the now, but also spend some time in the now reflecting on change. Who we were is not who we are and who we are is not who we will be, but each of those lives touch each other like the balls on a pool table, each one imparting direction and momentum to the next.
We have a lot of photos of my Dad and brother from when Brandon was little. I can imagine my mom took them, but somehow managed to avoid being in them. She still doesn't like having her picture taken, something I've noticed in women of her generation. My Dad always has that big goofy grin on his face. There are very few pictures of me and my Dad when I was that young. More often, they are of the four of us, a little nuclear family, Dad holding Brandon and Mom holding me. Dad always has that same grin. Mom only smiles in about half of her photos – except their wedding pictures. She can't seen to stop smiling in those. That was the family I was born into, Dad, Mom, Brandon, and then me.
I remember our library in Tripp. I remember that couch. I remember my parents sitting together in the evening reading books, sometimes with the television on and a sports game in the background. Dad had a business in Tripp, but it went under after a few years. We moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, just before I started kindergarten. Dad still works for a company that does that same thing as his family business. He still combs his hair the same way (he'll never go bald), he still wears shirts with pockets, and those pockets are often full of pens and little screwdrivers. He still reads books in the evening, with the game on in the background. Brandon reads, too, and they share many of the same books. So do I, but less scifi novels these days, and more academic tomes.
Here I am in that same library, on that same couch. I still have the teddy bear and the chipmunk. They are some of my oldest and most beloved toys. I don't know if these photos were taken at the same time or not. What I do know, is that when Dad lost his job in Lincoln, he and mom sold those books for a nickle or a quarter each. They made the rent that way, until they both found new jobs in Omaha. For years, Dad regretted the loss of some rare scifi paperbacks. For years, they both slowly rebuilt their library. When the internet started and Amazon began, he asked me to go online, standing behind me at the computer while I searched for the second book in a trilogy that he hadn't been able to find in a decade of weekly visits to the used bookstore. I was able to order it for him online. Shortly after, he signed up for a computer class at the local community college. He used his computer to scan in these photographs a few years later. He now uses the internet to research and book our family vacations.
My Mom is spooky. In all the photos I flip through, after I am born she looks like my Mom. Before I am born, she looks like … me. In found this one with her name and date attached. June 1978, five years after she and Dad were married, they took his Honda motorcycle down to Corpus Christy, Texas, and saw the Gulf Coast. She told me she made him buy that tall back because every time he stretched his long legs, he'd almost push her off the rear of the bike. I remember that motorcycle. I remember riding it (very slowly I'm sure) with my Dad around the little park in Tripp. He sold it, along with so much else, when they moved to Lincoln.
Mom doesn't like change that much. She grumbles whenever Dad talks about buying a new house or a new car. She always says she can't afford to go on vacation (we don't believe her), but once Dad books the trip she always wants to come. When I was in school in Lincoln and would book flights to San Francisco or Chicago just because the tickets were cheap, she would tell me not to go (there are weirdos in San Francisco!), but I think she secretly wanted to come. I don't know if she's always been this way, but I look at this picture and I see a young woman having fun, being adventure and carefree. And about 4 or 5 months pregnant, since Brandon was born in October 1978.
This is the Mom I remember. I remember the big hair (that perm!) and I was glad when it went out of fashion. Her face still looks the same. I don't know where this photo was taken, but I know it wasn't in our house in Tripp. Both sets of grandparents were only a few hours away in Nebraska. They used to come and stay with us, or we would go and stay with them. They came up to help us move, Grandpa Dale driving their big van all the way from Tripp down to Lincoln, to our new home in a little brick apartment building. We couldn't take our dog or cat and I was sad, but Mom found good homes for them. Mom used to bake bread in big coffee tins in that house in Tripp. She helped with Dad's business, then went to work as a bookkeeper at the concrete plant outside of town.
When we left Lincoln for Omaha, she got a job with the big insurance company, Mutual of Omaha. She's been there ever since. While Brandon and I were in elementary school she finished her bachelors degree one class at a time, going to night school at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Dad had to cook dinner on those nights. We ate a lot of PB&H sandwiches and boiled hot dogs, but we didn't mind. Mom bought our first family computer, an Epson 387, so she could write college papers at home. Brandon and I learned how to use it and one of the first programs she bought for it, on a big 5-7/8″ floppy disk, was a floor planning software. She bought it for me. No wonder a decade later I enrolled in the College of Architecture.
I am not that little girl anymore, but only in the sense that an acorn is not an oak tree. My family planted the seeds of who I would become a long time ago, but the world watered and shined on them in interesting new ways. I didn't stay in architecture. I didn't stay in Nebraska. Ten years ago I was moving into my little condo in Lincoln so I could go to the university there and I never would have predicted I'd be here ten years later. I don't think anyone would have, but when you look back on that long chain of karma, it doesn't seem so far fetched. The most difficult trick shot on a pool table is easy to understand when you trace it backward. But everyone would say it's impossible before it happens. Where will we all be in another ten years? Or twenty? I have no idea.
PS – If you think you won't change that much in years to come, here is Dan Gilbert to explain it with graphs:
Living On Purpose
This theme has been rattling around in my head for a while. Conscious living, mindfulness, intentional living, whatever it's called it usually sounds pretentious and far too privileged. It seems silly to talk about a purposeful life to someone frantically trying to feed three kids on as many minimum wage jobs while her neighborhood is getting shot up. But sometimes I wonder if more privileged people (including myself) were living fully-awake lives, maybe there would be fewer people trapped in situations like that because we'd all give more attention to poverty and violence than we do to shoe styles and sitcoms.
No, I'm not trying to take all the joy out of life. Squarely facing all the worst problems our country and world has to offer is like staring into the sun. We just can't stand it. I can't stand it. These aren't things any individual can solve in one fell swoop. But the world isn't made up of individuals. Actually it is, but not isolated individuals as we assume, but rather people embedded in systems that perpetuate violence and poverty. One person can't change every system, but they can change any system, an inch at a time if necessary. Which brings me back to a purposeful life.
No matter how they were started, by whom, or to what end, systems of suffering can only be perpetuated when people fail to tear them down and transform them. Even when we're not actively building them, even when we're intellectually opposed to them, if we are not also actively trying to change them, we are, in effect, perpetuating them. When we fail to live in ways that disrupt these on purpose, then we end up feeding the monster on our table scraps and it gets bigger.
Moreover, even if we aren't living hand to mouth in an urban war zone, our stress hormones can't tell the difference anymore. We're running from one deadline to another, trying to satisfy a dozen different powers-that-be who barely know our names, and just hoping that this will look good on our resumes so that someday we can get that job we really want – so we can do all that stuff, but with a slightly better paycheck. Yeah…why, again? No wonder we haven't solved immigration reform or the gender inequality yet.
So I keep thinking about this purposeful life. What would it be like to live a life where I knew that what I did every day went just a little way towards transforming the systems that perpetuate suffering? What would it be like to live a life that didn't feel so frantic and reactive, but rather felt focused on the task at hand under my conscious direction? What would it be like to have a sense of purpose and direction that didn't send my chasing after every possible rainbow, because I already knew what I needed to do when I got out of bed in the morning? Wouldn't that be better?
The answers to those questions seem so natural and positive. It sounds like a no-brainer. I don't know anyone who would turn that life down.
But I don't know anyone who has achieved it. At least, not personally, though I'd like to think they're out there.
This theme keeps rattling around in my head and in my spare time, I pick up books, skim articles, and watch TED talks. I didn't even realize what they all had in common, this theme of a conscious life, until I started listening to Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown on audiobook in my car. Because it's an audiobook, I can't crack it open and pull out a handy quote to demonstrate it's cleverness. I have many questions for Mr. McKeown, including what would he tell the single-mom with three kids and three jobs living in gang territory, but mostly I appreciate the track he's on. And I appreciate the track he's put me on.
Because I realize that I'm looking for the same thing now that I was looking for when I picked up Thich Nhat Hanh's book The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching a dozen years ago – a purposeful life. Thay would call it a mindful life or maybe just to be awake, since that's the 'Buddh' in Buddhism. What I've been reading and listening to and watching online are all modern-day Dharma talks, backed up with social scientific studies and statistics, but still Dharma. I constantly amazed by the resonance it has with two-thousand year old Buddhist teachings, until I remind myself that there's no reason to be amazed. Universal truth and all that…
I have an entire summer to contemplate that new track. I'm interested to discover how I can downgrade my life, clear out the busy-ness, design purposeful routines that become ingrained habits, empty my house, purify my spending habits, pursue the essential, and focus on the task at hand. And maybe when I've accomplished those cliches, I can spare some attention for the problems of poverty and violence and, you know, liberating the world from suffering and stuff.


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The most employed of all dental prosthetics, dentures are a simple way to make up for missing teeth. Loss of teeth can occur for any number of reasons, including below average oral hygiene to hereditary factors to simply plain old age. A less than perfect smile can take a toll on how you see yourself and how you connect with others. But with a quality pair of dentures, you can feel just like you used to without having anybody ever knowing your little secret!
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Aside from the beauty and confidence boosting benefits, dentures will also help with issues like enunciation of words, which can be inhibited by lacking teeth. Having those additional teeth that dentures furnish you with may also help make eating less of a challenge, which is often really tough for anyone without all their teeth.
Basic Oral Surgery Treatments
We hope you will never ever require oral surgery, but in case that you do it's always good for you to be aware of what it entails. Read on for some of the most popular oral surgery procedures:
- Dental implants – used as root systems to keep prosthetics constantly in place
- Wisdom teeth extraction – this really is self-explanatory – it means getting your wisdom teeth extracted
- Jaw surgery – a step taken when there are complications with the jaw's structure or other bone difficulties
- Root end surgery – a step undertaken when standard root canals can't cut the mustard;
- Crowns – typically fashioned from metal, crowns keep teeth that are under siege by cavities from getting more wear and tear
That's but a modest sample of oral surgeries, as they can be needed for almost everything from improving oral health to helping prosthetics be a little more comfy.
Braces for Teeth Straightening
If straight teeth are the thing you desire, you're going to need to pick a qualified professional who is experienced in dental braces. They put pressure to the teeth quite slowly across a incredibly long time, which ultimately moves them into a superior placement.
Normally, dentists will employ these sorts of braces:
- Metal – commonly created from strong stainless steel, metal dental braces are the most commonly seen ones
- Clear – clear dental braces are excellent when you would like to align your chompers without everybody realizing it; they're generally made from ceramic or plastic and can be more brittle than other forms, which can complicate the removal of them whenever the teeth are straightened
- Removable aligners – for easy cases where very little correcting is needed, you can use removable aligners that you put in and take out; they're generally not recognizable when worn.
No one likes an unattractive smile, but virtually everybody can appreciate a good looking one. When you have a Local Dentist Ratings dental professional use dental braces to better your smile, you are going to have a mouth that everybody you come in contact with envies!
Harlem Weather
Harlem Facts
|County Name:
|Area Codes:
|263 feet
|Average Age:
|35.1 years old
|Population Percentages:
|48.54% Male,
51.46% Female
|Average House Value:
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Are You Related to Robin Williams?
His maternal great-great-grandfather was Mississippi senator and governor Anselm J. McLaurin. Williams' ancestry includes English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, German, and French.
Robin Williams' Family Tree
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Find exactly what you're looking for with the web's most powerful recipe filtering tool.
1/1 Photo of Oatmeal Shortbread
Prep Time:
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This is different from the usual oatmeal shortbread cookie. This has corn starch and icing sugar in it. Enjoy the unique texture and flavor.
Units: US | Metric
Serving Size: 1 (442 g)
Servings Per Recipe: 1
Every recipe, menu, tip and how-to is right here, at your service.


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Photos and Description of this 3 bedroom holiday villa in Roussillon - Villa St Lea
Surrounded by vineyards, great views, close to a village.
Villa St Lea is a spacious villa, situated in the countryside, just 4 km from the beautiful village of Roussillon.
It has stunning views of the surrounding vineyards and is a wonderful base for exploring the Luberon Region.
This villa is perfect for a family or up to 6 people.
If you fancy just chilling out, there's a lovely private pool (10 x 5m), fitted with an alarm, a shaded terrace with a BBQ for dining al fresco and 1500 m² of maintained garden.
Inside the Villa: The living/dining area is furnished to a high standard, with a stylish yet traditional appearance. The good-sized room is equipped with a sofa, TV and chairs, as well as dining facilities for six people. There's also an ornate fireplace, adding a cosy atmosphere to the property.
The fully fitted kitchen has pretty much everything that you'll need when cooking for six people, including oven, hob, dishwasher, crockery and utensils. There's also a laundry room with a washing machine.
There are a total of three bedrooms on the first floor – two doubles and a twin. All are neatly decorated and provide comfortable accommodation for the occupants.
There are two shower rooms in the property (both en suite to a double bedroom) and two separate WCs, one on the ground floor and one on the first floor.
Outside the Villa: The well-maintained garden covers over 1500m2, and the perfect setting in which to simply relax and lose yourself during the beautiful days.
You can even choose to dine al fresco on either of the 2 terraces, one covered for shade, to make the most of your holiday!
The private 10m x 5m (depth of 1.2 to 1.9 m) pool is alarmed, and provides a welcome relief from the heat of the long, warm, Provencal summer days!
- Suitability:
- Long-term Renters Welcome
- children welcome
- pets not allowed


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|Horny Spanish Flies
Click here to visit site
|Short review: Latina lovers listen up! Exclusive movie of sensually hot Hispanic pre-women sucking Dude piston, shagging like a wild cat, taking it up the butt and more. If you're looking to see nice Latina femmes get impaled by hard Willy, you're in the right place. If you've got a pension for Latina missies, you're going to love trying this one out. Very much recommended for the true lover of Latina girls and Spanish femmes.


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The Fabrica: The Anatomy of a Beautiful Book
Published in 1543, The Fabrica, written by Belgian physician Andreas Vesalius, is one of the most influential books in medical history and also incredibly beautiful. Discover the remarkable story behind the creation of this pioneering book of anatomy.
Rare & Collectable Shakespeare
Considered the greatest writer in the English language, William Shakespeare's works are among the world's most widely read, most intensely studied, and most passionately collected. Enjoy this spectacular selection.
P.D. James Dies at 94
Crime writer P.D.James has died peacefully at her Oxford home. She created the beloved character of Scotland Yard Inspector Adam Dalgliesh, and wrote over 20 books throughout her career, most crime novels.
Winter is Coming
George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series is five novels deep, and its not over yet. Dwarves, dragons, betrayal and treachery make these books irresistible. Explore the fantastical world of A Games of Thrones.
21 Psychedelic Book Covers
Books were a real groovy trip in the 60s and 70s. Far out science fiction was as popular as ever, and imaginative stories set in fantastical universes opened the door to creative book design. We've gathered the best psychedelic covers here.


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Summer 2014 dates: June 2--August 1
Combinatorics and Probability 2014
Application Deadline: 11:59:59 pm on Wednesday February 26. Offers will be made soon after, and since ETSU participates in the "Common Earliest Reply Date Consortium of REUs" I will not insist on an acceptance to my REU before March 8.
This is a two-month (=nine-week) summer Research Experience for Undergraduates funded by the National Science Foundation. Summer 2014 will be its 22nd year of operation under probabilist/discrete mathematician Anant Godbole. Previous incarnations of the program, offered at Michigan Tech and ETSU, have been named Discrete Random Structures, Discrete Probability and Associated Limit Theorems, etc.
ETSU is located at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains in scenic Johnson City, East Tennessee, 100 miles from Knoxville, 200 miles from Charlotte (A US Airways hub with connections to Johnson City) and 250 miles from Atlanta (A Delta hub with connecting flights to Johnson City).
Team members work singly (seldom) or in small groups (typically) on problems widely varying in kind and approachability. I suggest a number of problems at the beginning of the session, and generally most projects grow out of these. Each student typically works on two problems of her/his choice. There's plenty of room for innovation, though. Generally problems are in (i) Discrete Math; or (ii) Probabilistic Methods applied to Discrete Math
The problems for 2014 will be shared with students as soon as I make them offers, but I expect a strong focus on Universal Cycles and Permutation Patterns in 2014. Exciting News: The 12th International Permutation Patterns Conference will be held in Johnson City July 7--11, right in the middle of the REU.
Most often, publishable papers grow out of projects at the ETSU REU. Past participants have published in The Journal of Combinatorial Theory; Statistics and Probability Letters; Combinatorics, Probability and Computing; Annals of Combinatorics; Electronic Journal of Combinatorial Number Theory; A dvances in Applied Probability; Journal of Number Theory; Electronic Journal of Combinatorics; Discrete Mathematics; SIAM Journal on Discrete Math; Graphs and Combinatorics; Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability; Pure Mathematics and Applications; Journal of Statistical Planning & Inference and several others. Participants also regularly attend professional conferences where they present their work: For example, the 2013 group went to the Annual Joint Math Meetings in Baltimore in January 2014, and some will go to the International Permutation Patterns Conference mentioned above. I expect that this year's group will go to the Joint Math Meetings in San Antonio, January 2015.


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Buying Advertising 3
How to successfully buy traffic on a budget
As I discussed in an earlier post, not learning the art of buying traffic is a bit like not learning how to drive a car. Sure, the bus is OK (which I compared to SEO), but if you really want full control and freedom you must go through the often frustrating learning curve.
Unfortunately for many, it's not a lack of willingness that is the problem. It's a lack of funds.
I've heard this a lot over the years, but haven't seen any decent (or at least free) guides for learning how to buy traffic on a budget. So today, I decided to put one together for you.
Adsense Competitors and Alternatives
Alternatives to Adsense. Google's AdSense has new competitors.
Fraudulent clicks
What click fraud is, and how to get your money back when fraudulent clicks occur.


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Kalm n Kind Yoga
| Yoga Classes in Reading
|Kalm n Kind Yoga
|Contact:Kim Pierpoint
|13 Gwynne Close,Tilehurst, Reading RG31 6RE
|Yoga Style: Hatha
|Send Message
Hatha yoga classes in Tilehurst, Tidmarsh and Hampstead Norreys. Regular 1:1's offered.
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ISO ways to salvage a particularly bitter bunch of celery
- greygarious Oct 24, 2013 02:59 PM
I buy supermarket celery, and don't mind when it is slightly bitter, though I prefer the milder stalks. I like the leaves in salads and for cooking.
For the first, and perhaps last, time, a couple of weeks ago I bought a large, plump bunch of local celery at the last farmer's market of the season here near Boston. At home, I removed almost all the leafed stem-lets and bagged them separately. I trimmed the root end, halved the stalks crosswise, and put them into water in a large straight-sided lidded glass jar. The leaves and stalks are by far the most bitter celery I have ever encountered. Using a sweet dressing makes the leaves barely edible, but I haven't cooked with them for fear of ruining the stock or soup.
I tried eating the raw stalks. Normally I do not de-string celery but this stuff demands it. It's almost impossible to bite through the strings, and when I peel them, I get the whole outer layer of the stalk coming off, not just thin strings. The lighter part that remains is only slightly less bitter than the exterior.
Will steaming, stir-frying, or any other method of cooking mellow the celery? I suspect that even if I added something sweet like honey, or put it in a sweet marinade, the bitterness would still be overpowering. I don't want to ruin a bunch of other ingredients but would hate to throw the celery out if I can salvage it.
re: salsailsa
That's what I want to know before wasting the effort. Will cooking - whether saute, braise, steam, or whatever - make enough of a difference to turn it into something edible?
re: greygarious
I have no idea if cooking it would make a difference. I have another experiment to try. Put something flavored into the water with the raw stalks and see if it will absorb that flavor and mask some of the bitterness. I'd try lemon juice.
You could try brasing. Saveur had a recipe onlive recently that I've been meaning to try. I couldn't be simpler. All that's in it is onion, pancetta, celery and tomatoes.
Do you have Molly Stevens All About Braising? If not here's a link to a braised celery recipe that I've fixed several times:
Swizzle sticks for Bloody Mary. ~ To cook with it, par boil for a few minutes and then incorporate into the dish. If that doesn't work have another, and another Bloody Mary. There's always file 13.
I roasted celery for the first time this year along with some parsnip, carrot and onion. It was really surprisingly good! I tried it because I was low on other ingredients and my celery was needing to be used up. It definitely sweetened it up. It was roasted with maple syrup and Dijon. Here is the recipe I used.
Braise the celery in a simple tomato sauce with cured pork or parmesan cheese. The celery will mellow out but have enough flavor to contrast with the umami-rich sauce.
I would recommend sauteeing them. If you're happy with the results, proceed with whatever you want to do with them. And report back so we'll know. I love a good crunchy celery stick but once in a while I'll get some that are just too bitter to eat raw. I've never noticed a problem with any I've cooked though.
I am curious if you always prep and store celery this way. If so, how long does it stay fresh? I like to keep some prepped and ready to snack on but they start browning on the ends within a couple of days.
re: MrsJonesey
I braised some of the celery last night, in white zinfandel, with onion and honey dijon mustard. The bitterness was curbed dramatically, so I am no longer hesitant to use the remaining stalks in mirepoix and other cooking. Thanks for all the suggestions!
As for storing, I keep it in its plastic sleeve in the crisper if it's a smaller bunch that I know I'll be using up within a couple of weeks. I have often read that wrapping the bunch in aluminum foil (not sure whether that includes the plastic sleeve) keeps it for weeks, but have not tried it. I do store it in a "vase" arrangement on a regular basis. I change the water every few days, and trim a sliver off the submerged ends. The tops do develop a sliver of brown at the rim but less than when the stalks aren't in water.
re: greygarious
That is good to know. Thanks for reporting back.
I have heard several people swear by the aluminum foil wrap. I tried it just recently and couldn't tell that it helped at all. I am beginning to wonder if celery lasts longer during certain parts of the year. Anyway, I put some celery sticks in water and covered with a plastic bag yesterday. I've been doing this for a while now with asparagus and broccoli when I bring them home and they do stay fresher longer.


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Anton Bauer Power Solution Bundle 3 for the Sony F3
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Latest update : 2013-09-09
UN warns of villagers' terror in remote parts of Central African Republic
Aid workers bring back grim reports of violence and abuse of villagers by armed gangs in northern Central African Republic. Also, one of the big issues causing divisions at the St Petersburg G20 summit is Syria - we look at African nations' take on a possible military intervention. And as Mali's new prime minister takes up his new post, the army's also in for a reboot.


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Simply connect with Facebook and kiss those password blues away,
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win or loose on the booze!! Egg chaser probably the only chinaman not built to be a gymnast!


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Weather Links
Humidity 83%
Winds 5.8mph
Sponsored by: Arceneaux Ford
Humidity 83%
Winds 5.8mph
Jan 18, 2011 12:35 PM by Press Release
Without Affordable Care Act protections, in 2014, 1 in 2 non-elderly Americans could be denied coverage or charged more due to a pre-existing condition
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today released a new analysis showing that, without the Affordable Care Act, up to 2 million non-elderly Louisiana residents who have some type of pre-existing health condition, like heart disease, high blood pressure, arthritis or cancer, would be at risk of losing health insurance when they need it most, or be denied coverage altogether. Across the country, up to 129 million Americans would be at risk.
Under the full range of policies in the Affordable Care Act to be enacted by 2014, Americans living with pre-existing conditions are free from discrimination and can get the health coverage they need, and families are free from the worry of having their insurance cancelled or capped when a family member gets sick, or going broke because of the medical costs of an accident or disease. Repealing the law would once again leave millions of Americans worrying about whether coverage will be there when they need it.
"The Affordable Care Act is stopping insurance companies from discriminating against Americans with pre-existing conditions and is giving us all more freedom and control over our health care decisions," said Secretary Sebelius. "The new law is already helping to free Americans from the fear that an insurer will drop, limit or cap their coverage when they need it most. And Americans living with pre-existing conditions are being freed from discrimination in order to get the health coverage they need."
The analysis found that:
* Anywhere from 50 to 129 million (19 to 50 percent) of Americans under age 65 have some type of pre-existing condition. Examples of what may be considered a pre-existing condition include:
o Heart disease
o Cancer
o Asthma
o High blood pressure
o Arthritis
* Older Americans between ages 55 and 64 are at particular risk; 48 to 86 percent of people in that age bracket live with a pre-existing condition.
* 15 to 30 percent of people under age 65 in perfectly good health today are likely to develop a pre-existing condition over the next eight years.
* Up to one in five Americans under age 65 with a pre-existing condition - 25 million individuals - is uninsured.
Prior to the Affordable Care Act, in the vast majority of states, insurance companies in the individual market could deny coverage, charge higher premiums, and/or limit benefits based on pre-existing conditions. Surveys have found that 36 percent of Americans who tried to purchase health insurance directly from an insurance company in the individual insurance market encountered challenges purchasing health insurance for these reasons.
A number of protections are already in place thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Insurers can no longer limit lifetime coverage to a fixed dollar amount or take away coverage because of a mistake on an application. Young adults have the option of staying on their parents' coverage up to the age of 26 if they lack access to job-based insurance of their own, and insurers cannot deny coverage to children because of a pre-existing condition.
Many uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions have already enrolled in the temporary high-risk pool program called the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP), which provides private insurance to those locked out of the insurance market because of a preexisting condition. The PCIP program - which has already saved people's lives by covering services like chemotherapy - serves as a bridge until 2014, when insurance companies can no longer deny or limit coverage or charge higher premiums because of a preexisting condition. There is a Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan available in every State, and more information can be found at www.HealthCare.gov or by calling 1-866-717-5826.
In addition to the ban on discrimination against people with preexisting conditions, in 2014, individuals and small businesses will have access to new, high-quality insurance choices through competitive marketplaces called health insurance Exchanges.
The report can be found here and more information about the new protections created by the Affordable Care Act and the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan can be found at www.HealthCare.gov.
6 hours ago


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Over 45,000 photographers, ranging from beginners to hardened professionals, visit photoSIG every day. The photographers who visit photoSIG today will spend over $60 million on photography-related products and services over the next year. Advertising on photoSIG is an effective and inexpensive way for you to reach these thousands of photographers and turn them into customers.
If you would like to advertise, then please refer to the sections "How does advertising on photoSIG work?" and "How do I get started?" for further details. If you have any questions, then feel free to contact us at email@example.com.
photoSIG is an extremely popular web site; we currently serve approximately 35 million pages to about 1.35 million visitors every month.
photoSIG's unique cumulative rating system engage users and keeps them coming back. Nearly half, 48%, of all photoSIG users visit every day, and another 25% visit every week.
Most photoSIG users are men, between the ages of 25 and 54, who are well-educated, have above-average household incomes, and use the Internet for a variety of purposes.
We run most of our ads through the Tribal Fusion advertising network. Every photoSIG page has space for a standard 468x60 or 728x90 banner at the top. We also have a standard 120x600 tower ad space on the main page and the photo pages. We are willing to negotiate other sizes or placements.
Tribal Fusion's ad management system gives you a lot of control over your ad campaign. You can configure how aggressively Tribal Fusion places your ads, limit your ads to certain geographical regions or to a certain number of impressions per user per day, manage your ad graphics, and view up-to-the-second statistics, all through Tribal Fusion's web site.
Tribal Fusion supports JPEG, GIF (static or animated), and Flash.
Tribal Fusion is a CPM network, which means that you pay for each "impression" (viewing) of your ad. Prices are quoted in CPM, or cost per thousand impressions. Typical prices are $6.00 CPM for placement on photoSIG only, $4.00 CPM for placement across several photography sites, and $1.00 CPM for placement throughout the Tribal Fusion network.
If you would like to advertise on photoSIG through Tribal Fusion, then please contact Erin Pearson (or 510-250-5546) at Tribal Fusion for more information.
If you are an advertising network or cannot advertise through Tribal Fusion, then you may contact us directly.
Our usage statistics were compiled from server logs using Webalizer 2.01-09. You may view the actual usage reports.
Demographic information about our users is based on a survey of 600 photoSIG users conducted March 14-28, 2002.
Yahoo! Picks Editor's Choice
January 16, 2002
Lockergnome Windows Daily
February 21, 2002
Amateur Photographer
Web Site of the Week
April 6, 2002
Popular Photography
Web Watch
July, 2002
What separates everyday snapshots from works of photographic art? Browse photoSIG to learn the finer points of distinction.
Yahoo! Picks review
There are lots of sites offering this [photo critique] function, but the sheer number of people using this particular website, if its own statistics are to be believed, is staggering. . . An excellent site and one of the best photo websites I've come across.
Amateur Photographer
The pictorial and critiquing qualities are refreshingly high.
Popular Photography
We've uncovered a wonderful site for those shutterbugs in the Lockergnome community.
Lockergnome Windows Daily
Congratulations on the creation of an excellent forum. I've been involved in others and your format is far superior.
Charles G.
My wife is wishing you dead as she is having to use threats of physical violence to get me away from photoSIG.
Chris J.


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Today's activity is to buy a new outfit.
We often buy our new little ones new clothes before we by ourselves clothes. Today is your turn to buy yourself something- a full outfit, a new shirt, a new pair of pants, or a new pair of shoes. If you aren't able to afford a new outfit right now, you can still look and pick something out that you would buy for yourself.
How often do you shop for new clothes for yourself? What was the last piece of clothing you purchased for yourself? If you were able to buy anything-clothing wise- for yourself, what would it be? Post a photo if you can.
One mom who replies to this post will win a CafeMom Shopping Tote.
If you missed yesterday's activity, you can find it here. If you haven't signed up for the 'Pamper Yourself' Challenge yet, you can do so here.
Giveaway rules:
No new outfit here!
I love lots of outfits on pinterest. lol
The last time i bought myself something was around Christmas. We were given giftcards for ourselves and we each got a couple new outfits for the winter season.
I'm actually taking an ugly frame I got for Xmas back to Penneys today. Store credit going to MYSELF. Woo hoo! I wonder if they have any not-disgusting nursing bras? Or maybe some nice comfy jammies. (obviously the store credit wont cover much of this purchase, but still.) Maybe a pretty top?
I did get myself a new Vera Bradley bag the other day =] It was very exciting.
I should, I had a baby 1 month ago. Need new clothes!