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Treatment Success
Bring rest into the night† with LUNESTA® (eszopiclone) to help insomnia patients fall asleep and stay asleep so they can wake up feeling rested.
†In clinical studies, LUNESTA was proven effective to help the majority of insomnia patients fall asleep and stay asleep for up to 7 hours. Individual results may vary.
1. LUNESTA [prescribing information]. Marlborough, MA: Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc.; May, 2014.
2. Zammit GK, McNabb LJ, Caron J, Amato DA, Roth T. Efficacy and safety of eszopiclone across 6-weeks of treatment for primary insomnia. Curr Med Res Opin. 2004;20(12):1979-1991.
3. Data on file, CSR 190-046. Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc.
4. Krystal AD, Walsh JK, Laska E, et al. Sustained efficacy of eszopiclone over 6 months of nightly treatment: results of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study in adults with chronic insomnia. SLEEP. 2003;26(7):793-799.
5. Hohagen F. Kappler C, Schramm E, et al. Sleep onset insomnia, sleep maintaining insomnia and insomnia with early morning awakening—temporal stability of subtypes in a longitudinal study on general practice attenders. SLEEP. 1994;17(6):551-554.
6. Data provided by Fingertip Formulary and is current as of December 2012.
7. Data provided by Symphony Health Solutions Access Investigator and reflects data collected from June to November 2012.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Extendables (2014)
Genres: Comedy
Stars: Brian Thompson, Mark Dacascos, Marisa Ramirez
What if Inspector Clouseau bulked up on steroids, then was given the job to direct a movie? The Extendables chronicles Hollywood myth and rumor, bending together an escalating series of mishaps that lead us and The Great Vardell Duselldorfer, in the strictest dramatic terms, to climax.
Release Date: 2014 (USA)
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Question about skill effects
hey there...
i just wondered about BO-skills.. for example i have the ensign skill "torpedo high yield 1" for my tactical BO..
now i promote him to lieutenant and he can learn a 2nd skill for lieutenant grade..
would you suggest me to upgrade his skill to "torpedo high yield 2" or should i choose another skill like "attack pattern beta 1".. is there a huge difference between lvl 1 and lvl 2 skill ?! with other words quality or quantity.. having more skills or having better skills.. im really unsure
what did you do and why?!
im happy for every feedback on this!
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FEDERAL Member for Dawson, George Christensen's, fight for North Queensland's ethanol industry received a boost today with the Prime Minister indicating the Liberal National Government would not increase the tax on the biofuel.
Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, acknowledged Mr Christensen's "deep commitment" to the ethanol industry and offered greater certainty to farmers and businesses depending on the emerging industry.
Monday, 03 March 2014 18:45
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Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Area Council BSA & Be Prepared Training Center presents a 16 hour Wilderness First Aid Class. The material is presented through combination of lectures and hands on practice with scenarios to help you apply what you learn. This class meets the requirements for those taking units to the BSA High Adventure Bases. It is also recommended for anyone leading groups on any kind of high adventure activities. The class is open to anyone over 14 with no prior first aid training required. A current CPR card is required before the completion of the class and CPR is offered separately both by sign ups on the Council Training Calendar and is available from other sources.
When: Saturday June 6, 2015 and Saturday June 13, 2015
8:00 am to 5 pm both days
Where: Wilderness First Aid at TBD
What to Bring- Comfortable clothing at allow you to get on floor to perform first aid practice. (Uniforms not required) a blanket or similar to for the practice sessions. BRING YOUR LUNCH
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Interest rates will rise – it is just a question of when
Central bankers in the euro zone, UK and US frequently adjust interest rates in unison.
That is not due to a herd instinct, but when conditions in one region merit higher or lower rates similar circumstances are often occurring elsewhere.
It does not always happen that way.
However, when the Bank of England makes noises about increasing interest rates it is worth asking the question whether the euro zone far behind.
In Ireland, the emerging recovery has been partly helped by a policy of exceptionally low interest rates. Last June the European Central Bank continued to reduce rates cutting to an unprecedented 0.15%.
Lower borrowing costs have eased pressure on Irish households – many of which are snowed under with high levels of debt.
Borrowers with tracker mortgages have seen a substantial 4.1% drop since the crash began in 2008. Those with standard variable loans have not been so lucky. Of course lower rates also mean reduced returns for savers.
In the UK this week, board minutes from the Bank of England revealed two members of its monetary policy committee had voted to hike rates.
The bank's Governor Mark Carney, an Irish passport holder, has said "rates will need to start to rise" from their record low of 0.5%.
Analysts think that is likely to happen next year. Members of the monetary policy committee will examine wages, employment and economic growth before deciding when to tighten rates.
While growth in Britain has been the strongest of any of the G8 countries so far this year, the picture in the euro zone is more lacklustre. Growth in the currency bloc was zero between April and June.
As Ireland picks up the pieces after the crash, the economy here is expected to expand much more quickly, possibly by 2.5% this year – although that turn-around follows a dramatic plunge in economic output.)
Inflation in the euro zone is running at 0.4% – far below the level at which the European Central Bank is comfortable.
There are a number of other measures which show conditions in the currency bloc remain sluggish. With anaemic growth and weak inflation there is little incentive for the ECB to hike rates for the time being.
But when the recovery happens across the euro zone and inflation creeps up, Frankfurt will tighten monetary policy.
Many Irish households, which have been hit with higher taxes and wage cuts, have managed to pay their mortgages due to the substantial reduction in ECB rates.
For many, higher rates may be difficult to handle because their disposable incomes have diminished significantly during the crash.
It is not scaremongering to say rates will rise at some point in the future.
The question for the Central Bank, the Government and the banks here is what they will do to ensure a new group of householders don't slip into arrears.
It is clearly going to be some time before Frankfurt increases rates.
And it would be reassuring to know the Irish authorities had at least considered the issue while they have the luxury of time.


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2006 BEST Restaurant, General Excellence, North
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Before setting up shop in Gloucester, star chef Ken Duckworth gained invaluable training turning out classics like creamy wild mushroom soup and succulent Dover sole in Paris and at Boston's famed Maison Robert. The American desserts, such as peanut butter pie and cheesecake, are the vision of Duckworth's wife, Nicole, a self-trained pastry chef. Each dish, expertly executed and oozing with flavor, is testimony to the couple's passion for perfection.
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A Discovery of Witches: A Novel (All Souls Trilogy) (edition 2011)
by Deborah E. Harkness
Work details
A Discovery of Witches: A Novel by Deborah Harkness
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No current Talk conversations about this book.
I adored this book, it was captivating, well written, and a page turner! In hindsight the beginning is probably the slowest part, the book gets better and better with every page you turn, and when I reached the end I couldn't wait to start on book #2.
This book had the rare quality of making me think, I'm glad there's a book #2 and #3, I'm happy I still have a thousand pages or so to read. Recently I've read some good series opener, but none of them made me feel glad there was more, instead of annoyed the story didn't end. A Discovery of Witches did, because it's that good.
The books has all the ingredients to be a masterpiece: a world full of magic, a mysterious manuscript of hidden powers, a forbidden love, a rising conflict between magical creatures, and time travelling.
The story is intricate between present, past, and future. There are many mysteries to solve and secrets to unravel. Our heroine Diana has to embark on a journey of self-discovery that will shatter her every belief. Luckily she's doesn't have to struggle alone.
I'm not saying anything else as I want to leave you spoiler-free.
The only negative note I could find is that sometimes the alchemy, genetic, and science talking could get a bit heavy-handed. Also some descriptive parts are too long. So if I had a criticism would be to cut 50 pages or so from the book. I am a really impatient reader, and I want every page to mean something.
very disappointing. kept hoping that this would grab my attention, but it had so many wasted pages.
This kept me interested from the beginning to the end. I am glad it is the first of a series - there is a lot I still want to know!
Probably the thing I liked best was the way the author portrays emotion well through characters' gestures and actions. But it was just long for me.
While studying at the Bodelian library, Diana Bishop meets the enigmatic Matthew Clairmont. Right away, she knows that he's a vampire. Of course, she always knows when she meets another non-human, creature, since she herself is a witch. Due to childhood trauma, she is resolved to never use her magical power, but she is occasionally tempted to break that rule. Then, in the course of her studies, she requests a manuscript that seems unusually interesting to other witches, vampires, and daemons in the area. Matthew Clairmont has been searching for that particular book for decades, and he's immediately interested in why it would appear for Diana, but nobody else. And then, as he gets to know her, he begins to care for Diana for her own sake, rather than the sake of the manuscript. Since certain other creatures also have an interest in getting the book -- and aren't choosy about the methods they use to do so -- Diana is in a dangerous spot. Nor is her relationship with Matthew going to make her safer, since romance between witches and vampires has been forbidden for centuries. Diana is about to enter a world of magic, danger, and passion such as she has never imagined.
I'd been wanting to read this for some time, since a lot of people really liked it when it came out, so when a friend recommended it as our book group pick, I was game. Well, if you want my opinion in brief: it's not great literature, but it's not Twilight, either. There were a few disturbing similarities: like Edward, Matthew has a predilection for creeping through windows and watching women as they sleep, ordering them about in masterful ways, and putting off *ahem* passionate encounters despite the fact that the female partner is more than willing. He's also described as cold, though fortunately he does not glitter. (Side note: what's the deal with women finding cold-bodied males attractive? Anyone who's had a bed-mate brush their leg with an icy-cold foot should be able to relate to my bemusement at this, right? I guess the coldness might be nice in summer...) All in all, though, the writing was better and the characters more intelligent, so I'll stop with the comparisons. Personally, my opinion of the book is mixed. I did find it an engaging read, though it was never particularly fast-paced, which may bother some readers. Since the ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, I might eventually pick up the next book to see what happens to the characters. But the romance just doesn't do much for me -- perhaps this is too much personal information, but I just don't find the predator/prey relationship sexy -- so I found myself rolling my eyes a bit at the two of them.
"With books about fictional witches, it's all too easy to fall back on tongue-in-cheek descriptors like "enchanting" or "spellbinding," but both adjectives aptly describe the superbly entertaining saga Harkness has crafted. This is a riveting tale full of romance and danger that will have you on the edge of your seat, yet its chief strength lies in the wonderfully rich and ingenious mythology underlying the story. Entwining strands of science and history, Harkness creates a fresh explanation for how such creatures could arise that is so credible, you'll have to keep reminding yourself this is fiction."
As will be obvious by now, this is a very silly novel. Characters and relationships are stereotyped. The historical background is a total pudding. The prose is terrible. And yet, the ideas have just enough suction, somehow, to present an undemanding reader with some nice frissons. I liked, for example, the way Diana tries to sublimate her magic powers in running and rowing and doing yoga – at a mixed vampire-witch-daemonic yoga class, participants struggle not to levitate during their vinyasas. And I liked the way Matthew and Diana smell to each other like Jo Malone candles: Diana is "horehound, frankincense, lady's mantle", Matthew is "cinnamon and clove".
"a thoroughly grown-up novel packed with gorgeous historical detail...Harkness writes with thrilling gusto about the magical world. Whether she's describing a yoga class for witches, daemons, and vampires or Diana's benignly haunted house, it's a treat to suspend disbelief. ... As the mysteries started to unravel, the pages turned faster, almost as if on their own. By the most satisfying end, Harkness had made me a believer.
"a romantic, erudite, and suspenseful first novel by Deborah Harkness. The first in a planned trilogy, it sets up blood drinkers and spell weavers as enemies for eternity in a feud as old as the Crusades; the duo confront social disapproval and intolerance as they elude evildoers and puzzle out enigmas throughout history. ...Harkness attends to every scholarly and emotional detail with whimsy, sensuality, and humor.
The protagonist is a witch. Her beau is a vampire. If you accept the argument that we've seen entirely too many of both kinds of characters in contemporary fiction, then you're not alone. Yet, though Harkness seems to be arriving very late to a party that one hopes will soon break up, her debut novel has its merits; she writes well, for one thing, and, as a historian at the University of Southern California, she has a scholarly bent that plays out effectively here.
References to this work on external resources.
Wikipedia in English
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0670022411, Hardcover)
Amazon Best of the Month, February 2011: It all begins with a lost manuscript, a reluctant witch, and 1,500-year-old vampire. Dr. Diana Bishop has a really good reason for refusing to do magic: she is a direct descendant of the first woman executed in the Salem Witch Trials, and her parents cautioned her be discreet about her talents before they were murdered, presumably for having "too much power." So it is purely by accident that Diana unlocks an enchanted long-lost manuscript (a book that all manner of supernatural creatures believe to hold the story of all origins and the secret of immortality) at the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and finds herself in a race to prevent an interspecies war. A sparkling debut written by a historian and self-proclaimed oenophile, A Discovery of Witches is heady mix of history and magic, mythology and love (cue the aforementioned vampire!), making for a luxurious, intoxicating, one-sitting read. --Daphne Durham
Ten More Books for Readers of A Discovery of Witches
Interested in learning more about magic and science?
I may have written a novel, but I'm still a history professor! Here are some reading suggestions for those of you whose curiosity has been stirred up by the story of Diana Bishop, Matthew Clairmont, and the hunt for the missing alchemical manuscript Ashmole 782. All of the titles here are non-fiction, and inspired some aspect of A Discovery of Witches.
Elias Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum: Don't be put off by the Latin title. This is a collection of English alchemical texts that were gathered by Elias Ashmole. The missing alchemical manuscript that Diana finds in the Bodleian library is not among them, alas, but if you are interested in the subject this is a fascinating glimpse into the mysterious texts that she studies as a historian.
Janet Browne, Darwin's Origin of Species: Books That Changed the World: Browne is not only a great scholar, but a superb writer. A highly-regarded biographer of Darwin, here she turns her talents to writing a "biography" of his most famous book—and one of Matthew Clairmont's favorites, as well.
Owen Davies, Grimoires: A History of Magic Books. If you are interested in the history of magic and witchcraft, Davies' description of the development of magical spellbooks will provide insights into how ideas about magic, science, and nature developed over the centuries.
Carol Karlsen, The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England. Diana Bishop is descended from a long line of witches. You will find out more about some of those witches—the Bishops and the Proctors—while reading this classic interpretation of what happened in Salem in 1692.
Robert Kehew, Ezra Pound, and W. D. Snodgrass, Lark in the Morning: The Verses of the Troubadours. Matthew is a very old vampire, who has slightly old-fashioned views on love and romance. You might be surprised at the love poetry of his early life, and come away with a whole new appreciation for "old-fashioned."
Bruce Moran's Distilling Knowledge: Alchemy, Chemistry, and the Scientific Revolution. This marvelous book is not only deeply learned but extremely readable. Touched with Moran's sense of humor and his compassion for his subject's tireless efforts to understand the natural world, you will come away from this book with a new appreciation for the alchemists.
Alexander Roob, Alchemy and Mysticism. Diana Bishop is an expert on the enigmatic imagery that is used in alchemical texts. Many are included in Roob's book, along with other illustrations from mystical and magical traditions.
Lyndal Roper, Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. This scholarly book was important to me as I wrote A Discovery of Witches because it helped me understand how the belief in witches influenced the imagination. Many of the notions we have about witchcraft today have their roots in these terrifying fantasies.
James Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in Early Modern England. Sharpe's book is an ideal starting point if you are interested in the history of witchcraft beyond Salem or Germany. One of his most controversial arguments focuses on the role that women played as accusers—not just as victims—in the witchcraft trials.
Bryan Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry. I was fascinated by the combination of history, genealogy, and science in Sykes's work. The book provides an introduction to the study of genetics, and to the legacies that are carried from generation to generation among the population.--Deborah Harkness (Photo of Deborah Harkness © Marion Ettlinger)
(retrieved from Amazon Mon, 30 Sep 2013 13:56:18 -0400)
Witch and Yale historian Diana Bishop discovers an enchanted manuscript, attracting the attention of 1,500-year-old vampire Matthew Clairmont. The orphaned daughter of two powerful witches, Bishop prefers intellect, but relies on magic when her discovery of a palimpsest documenting the origin of supernatural species releases an assortment of undead who threaten, stalk, and harass her.… (more)
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Bruce Bartlett is a former senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis of Dallas, Texas. Bartlett is a prolific author, having published over 900 articles in national publications, and prominent magazines and published four books, including Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action.
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Seriously: White House Suggests More Gun Control In Strict Baltimore After Bloody Memorial Day Weekend | Katie Pavlich
Poll: 46 Percent Of Americans Want Stephanopoulos To Stay Away From 2016 Election Coverage | Matt Vespa
Marco Rubio: We're at the water's edge of mainstream Christian teachings being branded "hate speech" | Allahpundit


text:
This section contains 6,930 words
(approx. 24 pages at 300 words per page)
Critical Essay by Edward Blishen
SOURCE: An Introduction, in Song of a Prisoner by Okot p'Bitek, The Third Press, 1971, pp. 1-40.
Blishen is an English autobiographer, fiction writer, and critic. In the following excerpt, he discusses p'Bitek's Song of Lawino, Song of Ocol, and Song of a Prisoner. He asserts that p'Bitek's poetry is musical and entertaining even as it expresses the agony of his people.
Song of Lawino: A Lament is a poem in thirteen parts. It was translated into English from the Acholi by the author who states that he "has thus clipped a bit of the eagle's wings and rendered the sharp edges of the warrior's sword rusty and blunt, and has also murdered rhythm and rhyme." As to this, I can only say that the eagle's wings must originally have been of quite terrifying span, and the warrior's sword dazzlingly sharp and shining. As to rhyme, the loss of it has led, in English, to a curiously exciting pace which, as we have the poem, might cause any reader to fell that rhyme would act as an unwelcome brake. The rhythm, in English, is most subtle and flowing.
Taban lo Liyong is convinced that Lawino is the final form of a poem Okot was working on in 1954, when it had some such title as Te Okono pe Luputu—" positively translatable," says lo Liyong, "as: Respect the Ways of Your People, or Stick to Acholi Customs, or Blackman, Be Proud of African Traditions—and Don't Abandon Them for the Whiteman's." Any of these titles certainly sums up the apparent statement the poem makes. The argument is put into the bitter mouth of the wife of Ocol, a chief's son, who has thrown her aside in favour of "a modern girl." The dominant tone of Lawino's comment on her rival can be illustrated from her first discussion of "the beautiful one," whose name is Clementine.
Brother, when you see Clementine!
The beautiful one aspires
To look like a white woman;
Her lips are red-hot
Like glowing charcoal,
She resembles the wild cat
That has dipped its mouth in blood,
Her mouth is like raw yaws,
It looks like an open ulcer,
Like the mouth of a fiend!
Tina dusts powder on her face
And it looks so pale …
This is the manner, widely throughout the poem. The tone is, on the surface, one of naive astonishment. Lawino is almost tenderly bemused by Tina's makeup, as she is by Ocol's preference for English over his mother tongue, for books over dancing; and, when it comes to dancing, for Western forms rather than Ugandan ones. But there's no tenderness here, of course. In his reading, to Richard Hughes and me, Okot's tone in such a passage had the quality of a kind of surprised purring, but it was not the purring of a domestic cat. Intense savagery lies under this surface, and never more so than when Lawino is pretending to be reasonable. To me, part of the comic force of the poem lies in the frequent conflict between the tone and the actual words that Lawino speaks: and one of Okot's great skills in writing it, certainly in this translation, lies in his having so laid out the poem that, inevitably, one registers this clash of manner and content.
Setting out her case in the opening section of the poem, Lawino inveighs against her husband's distaste for her, her relatives and his own clansmen. She is, according to Ocol, unlettered, unbaptised (and so no better than a dog), primitive. She is at fault because she cannot play the guitar or count coins. She is silly. Her mother is a witch: her clansmen are fools "because they eat rats." All of them are sorcerers. Indeed, all black people are primitive, and "their ways are utterly harmful."
Ocol says he is a modern man,
A progressive and civilised man,
He says he has read extensively and widely
And he can no longer live with a thing like me
Who cannot distinguish between good and bad.
Alongside this report of Ocol's opinions, Lawino chides him, in terms that are to grow stronger as the poem continues. He is not a man any longer—he is a dead fruit! He is behaving like a child! His people, she hints, make up songs of ridicule about him—he who, as son of a Chief, should be the subject of songs of praise.
Then follows the attack on Clementine. This has, at times, a feline hilarity: the claws scratch deep.
And when she walks
You hear her bones rattling.
Her waist resembles that of the hornet.
But suddenly the note changes. There are passages in this poem, when Lawino celebrates the customs of her own people, that have a quality of elation—limpid, lyrical—and also of great gravity that are most deeply moving. So here, at the end of her tooth-and-nail attack on her rival, Lawino is made to speak of the Acholi woman's traditional attitude to her husband's need of other women.
I am not unfair to my husband.
I do not complain
Because he wants another woman,
Whether she is young or aged!
Who has ever prevented men
From wanting women?
Jealousy is a weakness—it can only mean that a woman is aware of her own defects. The competition for a man's love is a fair one, conducted according to perfectly reasonable rules.
You win him with a hot bath
And sour porridge.
The wife who brings her meal first,
Whose food is good to eat…
Such is the woman who becomes
The head-dress keeper.
She has no fear of competing with Clementine, Lawino claims. What she asks is that her husband should cease insulting her, and should recognise that the ways of his ancestors are good:
Their customs are solid,
And not hollow,
They are not thin, not easily breakable,
They cannot be blown away
By the winds
Because their roots reach deep into the soil.
And Lawino goes on to make an important statement—important, that is, because it has so often been said, carelessly, that Song of Lawino is simply an attack on the Western way of life.
I do not understand
The ways of foreigners,
But I do not despise their customs.
Why should you despise yours?
It is still possible, taking this passage into account, to claim (as lo Liyong does) that the poem is a hopeless plea for the cessation of all cultural borrowing: that the Acholi customs themselves have no particular purity in this respect: and that indeed many of the customs celebrated by Lawino had fallen into disuse by the time the poem was written. But I believe it is essential to note that Lawino is not crying out against imported practices because those practices are in themselves detestable. She is rather trying to preserve a dream of, as it were, coherent cultural habit. The argument, as an argument, is so vulnerable (thus Okumu pa'Lukubo can point out that Acholi women are themselves great users of cosmetics, and that the great Acholi dances have become museum-pieces) that, given so plainly intelligent a poet, we have to look, I believe, below the surface for what is really being said. Given also the lyrical beauty of many of the passages in which Lawino speaks of Acholi customs. In a way, one could say this of the poem: that the intense longing for cultural coherence that arises from such passages is the point of the poem. It may be true that we cannot halt the dislocation of cultures that everywhere is occurring; or it may simply be true, as the poem seems often to imply, that the price paid for such dislocation is too high. But in fact it is an apparently impossible thing that is being said in Song of Lawino: that perhaps we should pause, or that perhaps we cannot afford to move at such a fantastic pace. This is impossible, as a statement, because we have nowhere in the world really begun to think along such lines. But in the impossible propositions set out by a poet have often lain the seeds of what, belatedly, the world has seen to be necessary kinds of action. Lawino, I suspect, is a poem that performs this function. We may swarm critically all over it, and point to all its logical weaknesses, and yet we may still not have robbed it of a fraction of its intrinsic strength. The poet, after all, is only describing his own sense of being himself intolerably divided. You can hardly study in three Western universities without becoming something of an Ocol, and yet we cannot doubt—I do not see how we can—that Lawino's voice is in great measure Okot's. It is in this sense that I mean that the argument may not yet be ready for wholly rational discussion. What appears to be an argument is often, I suggest, a simple statement of the poet's awareness of being divided against himself, and (as I think we shall see plainly when we turn to Song of a Prisoner) his awareness that the whole world is, in some such way, intolerably divided. I am often reminded, reading Lawino, of the great cry uttered, in so many and powerful ways, by the English poet John Donne as he stood with one foot in the medieval world and the other in the world of early modern science. Donne's arguments do not stand up: he cannot abolish the work of Copernicus: he cannot restore the medieval sense of a coherent chain of being. And yet his cry was essential to the awareness of his time. It was a cry that, under the hopelessness of the surface argument, was an utterly necessary reminder of the permanent human need of coherence, of order. And such a cry, I believe, Lawino utters: being, for that reason, a poem important not only to Africa, but to the whole world.
So, throughout much of the poem, a double operation is being conducted. All of Okot p'Bitek's deft and darting sense of mischief is at work when he attacks, in terms of Lawino's carefully wide-eyed and deceptively innocent amazement, the forms of dancing preferred by Ocol and Clementine: their Westernised taste in dress, their Western attitudes to time and to sickness and death. In much of this there is a marvellous, mischievous comedy. I have known Western readers bereft of all appetite for a while by Lawino's account of their feeding habits:
The white man's stoves
Are good for cooking
White men's food:
For cooking the tasteless
Bloodless meat of cows
That were killed many years ago
And left in the ice
To rot!
For frying an egg
Which when ready
Is slimy like mucus,
For boiling hairy chicken
In saltless water.
You think you are chewing paper!
Lo Liyong has curiously little patience with this element in the poem. It turns the work, he suggests, into "light literature" (a term which he surely ought to discuss before he uses it merely as a phrase of disparagement). "Too much space and energy," he argues, "is taken up with pointing out the foibles in the Western way of life … these foibles that are easily seen." Lo Liyong regards this as "childishness": "Some of it is fun for an Acholi audience: some impudence, some sarcasm, and plenty of 'raw' social anthropology. Juvenility…." To say such things is surely to fail to weigh the pure comic success of these elements in the poem. It is not easy to imagine an Okot p'Bitek entirely or even largely stripped of his wicked and mocking manner. Even when he is most deeply serious, as we shall see when we look at Song of a Prisoner, a kind of dark laughter is never far away. And the truth is that much of Lawino, much that Okot's old classmate frowns over for its "lightness," has proved to be durable fun for audiences much wider and less special than Acholi ones. There is no wishing away the jester in this poet's work. When his targets are obvious, they are most unobviously teased and taunted.
The second part of the operation that one can see Okot conducting in Lawino lies in the account of Acholi customs and ways of life—idealised, no doubt, but not the less lovely and grave for all that. So, opposed to the hilariously mocking descriptions of Western dance is Lawino's celebration of Acholi dancing: to the tendentiously revolting view of the European cuisine, Lawino's marvellous tour of the Acholi kitchen:
Here on your left
Are the grinding stones:
The big one
Ashen and dusty
And her daughter
Sitting in her belly
Are the destroyers of millet
Mixed with cassava
And sorghum.
It is all appallingly unfair, as lo Liyong notes—and yet again, one has to say that we are not really concerned with an attempt to be fair, to provide a balanced argument. It is with Western dance and cooking exactly as it was, in that dispute of Okot's with the British Council, with the piano. I remember that Okot made the piano, that patently superb musical instrument, seem an absurdity beneath one's contempt! How ridiculous the piano was! Not for one moment did one believe that Okot truly withheld his admiration from the piano: just as one would not have been surprised to see him dancing the detested rumba. This was not the sort of argument he was conducting. Mockery of the one was necessary to reinforce the idealisation of the other: of the piano, to promote the drum: of the rumba, to intensify the claims made for the get-stuck dance. Lo Liyong asks us to set on one side "all the crocodile tears which Okot made Lawino shed profusely, for Okot is a sceptic on the surface as well as between the lines." But for that sentence really to have meaning, lo Liyong would have had to say that Okot was a cynic, not a sceptic: the claim being that he is making an empty show, in order to secure easy laughter and literary honour. Of course the surface of the work sparkles with scepticism, with all the facets of a complex and elusive mind. But I would argue that under this, there is the deepest possible gravity. And again, the test is one that each reader must make for himself, subjectively: it lies in the tone of what is written. I cannot doubt the profound seriousness of tone with which Okot addresses himself to the ways of the Acholi world. He may, for his own purpose, have turned that world into a Utopia. But to claim that he wrote these passages, so lyrically celebratory, with his tongue in his cheek, is (on the evidence of my ear) nonsense.
Another quality of Okot's writing to which I want to pay more attention when I come to Song of a Prisoner seems also, for what it implies as to the poet's entire intention, an element that can be weighed only by the ear, as it were—by the reader's general sensitiveness. It lies in that habit, so intrinsic to Okot p'Bitek's writing that one almost ceases to notice it, of referring incessantly to life other than human—to the life of animals, insects, plants.
His eyes grow large,
Deep black eyes,
Ocol's eyes resemble those of the Nile Perch!
He becomes fierce
Like a lioness with cubs,
He begins to behave like a mad hyena …
The backs of some books
Are hard like the rocky stem of the poi tree …
You wish you were lucky
To find someone to assist you
Who does not shout
Like house-flies
When disturbed
From an excreta heap!…
This is certainly a habit of Ugandan poetry, a deep part of the oral tradition. It is not an originality, in Okot. And yet it seems to me that his use of it, constant, profuse, is another means by which he roots his vision in Africa, and nowhere else: by which he brings the reader back, time and again, to that profound sense of place that, together with that profound sense of rooted custom he appears endlessly to offer as an alternative to the shallow confusions of half-westernised ways. Again, it is the rootedness he seems to insist upon. Again, under all the imperfections of the surface argument, what he can be felt to be saying is: Let us, before we enter the nowhereness of uniform modern existence, consider desperately the importance of knowing where we come from, where we live. Let us think generally in terms of roots. Or, to adapt the famous epigraph to the poem: Let us think what we shall be doing before we uproot the pumpkin in the old homestead. Lawino, in fact, is no innocent and naive village girl, at all. She is a poet and anthropologist, mingled, with a profoundly difficult and provocative argument to put forward in whatever ways may offer.
Of course, poets of any quality are mixed creatures! Of course, many of the criticisms that, in his lively way, Taban lo Liyong brings to bear against Lawino, and which really stem from his knowledge of Okot the man, are likely to be justified. Into Lawino's attacks on Western forms of religion lo Liyong reads Okot's malice towards the Catholic missions. No one can read this section without suspecting that personal revenges are being exacted. It is in this section and again in the section on politics, which lo Liyong feels to be the best in the poem, that Okot's impersonation of Lawino, the village girl, most obviously slips. The poet steps out from behind the mask. Without being experts on the Ugandan political situation, we can believe that, here and there, the voice that speaks is that of Okot p'Bitek, the disappointed political candidate. Lo Liyong says, from his knowledge of his friend, that if Okot has "an overriding passion beyond living life, it is politics." But when we have accepted that such a section of this poem, from a man so committed and concerned, so clearly and properly anxious to play a part in the developing history of his country, must have its moments when the frustrated or ordinarily irritated man speaks, rather than the larger poet, still, and especially in view of what is to come in Song of a Prisoner, one must note, and with proper gravity, what in essence is said in the eleventh part of Song of Lawino:
If only the parties
Would fight poverty
With the fury
With which they fight each other,
If diseases and ignorance
Were assaulted
With the deadly vengeance
With which Ocol assaults his mother's son,
The enemies would have been
Greatly reduced by now….
… those who have
Fallen into things
Throw themselves into soft beds,
But the hip bones of the voters
Grow painful
Sleeping on the same earth
They slept on
Before Uhuru!
This does not belong to the field of purely personal revenges or irritations or disappointments. It is again a cry of something like panic at the rootless disorder of things—the too sudden and too infatuated plunge into some travesty of national politics.
I cannot leave Lawino, such a deviously serious poem, as I claim, and yet such a fiercely comic one, without a word about the twelfth part, called "My Husband's House is a Dark Forest of Books." Here is Okot p'Bitek, nourished on books, producer of books, in a wild extravaganza of disdain attacking Ocol for being a bookman. The section is worth looking at closely by any reader because it is so relevant to the accusation that, in much of the poem, Okot is intent purely on mischief, on appealing to the sense of fun of an Acholi audience. Whatever a reader's view about any argument for or against intellectualism, or bookishness, it would require a reader of some owlishness, and considerable resistance to comedy, not to be vastly entertained by this section.
My husband's house
Is a mighty forest of books,
Dark it is and very damp,
The steam rising from the ground
Hot thick and poisonous
Mingles with the corrosive dew
And the rain drops
That have collected in the leaves …
For all our young men
Were finished in the forest,
Their manhood was finished
In the classrooms,
Their testicles
Were smashed
With large books!
Of course, one thinks with that radical academic, this is to put the clock back with a vengeance! Of course, one thinks momentarily with Lo Liyong, here is "Okot the sceptic posing as a champion for dying and dead customs he doesn't believe in." Here is Okot p'Bitek the intellectual pretending to a swinging anti-intellectualism! But one recovers quickly—I speak for myself—and adds two other statements. First: here is fun! Here is the most hilarious delight! If there had to be mockery of book-reading, could it be more amusingly, and more unexpectedly, expressed? in terms of a more grotesque poetry? And second: this cannot, in the nature of the poem and the poet, be merely mischief, or merely fun—or merely perversity! By an unbalanced bookishness, I think Okot is saying, it is possible that the new African is being severely damaged. Books have taken on an undue importance. Books have been resorted to beyond their true virtue. The use and reading of books, too, needs rooting in the African soil. The new man who tries to climb by books alone will climb nowhere at all.
Taban lo Liyong argued, in the essay already quoted, that Song of Lawino should be part of a triptych. Ocol should be allowed to state his case: so should Clementine. I don't know if it was in response to this suggestion that Okot wrote Song of Ocol, which appeared in 1970. It is a furious, headlong, bewildering poem, far briefer than Lawino, without the swarming life of its predecessor. I am indebted to my friend Cosmo Pieterse for the suggestion that, in this poem, Ocol is attempting to defend himself against accusations of which he has forgotten the actual nature. In the first five of its nine parts Ocol simply rages against old Africa. Lawino's song is
the mad bragging
Of a defeated general …
The whole past will be swept away. The pumpkin will go early—had already almost gone.
I see a large pumpkin
A thousand beetles
In it;
We will plough up
All the valley,
Make compost of the pumpkins
And the other native vegetables,
The fence dividing
Family holdings
Will be torn down,
We will uproot
The trees demarcating
The land of clan from clan,
We will obliterate
Tribal boundaries
And throttle native tongues
To dumb death.
And this is the tone, this the wild and whirling character, of the first half of the poem. It is destructive shout, close to hysteria. Old Africa is blisteringly impugned. All that Lawino celebrated is savaged by this extraordinary song of Ocol's. He cries out against the very fact of his Africanness.
Mother, mother,
Why was I born
All will be burned and broken. The whole past will be swept away: all the witches and wizards, the poets, priests, musicians, story tellers, myth makers, glorifiers of the past. There will be an end to
The stupid village anthem of
"Backward ever,
Forwards never."
All the professors of anthropology and teachers of African history shall be hanged. All the anthologies of African literature destroyed. All the schools of African studies closed down. Ocol becomes surely, in these passages, not a character at all, but an extreme part of the tormented African spirit: the part that, in its despair, would turn from the effort of knitting past with present. "Smash all these mirrors," cries Ocol,
Smash all these mirrors
That I may not see
The blackness of the past
From which I came
Reflected in them.
So taboos, customs and traditions must be shattered. The women of Africa must be shown that they have taken pride in what is merely grotesque. The men must be shown how derisory their achievements have been, over the centuries:
A large arc
Of semi-desert land
Strewn with human skeletons …
A monument to five hundred years
Of cattle theft!
This Ocol—the Ocol of the first half of his song—is driven by a destructive dread and hatred of his African self. And later in the poem, his desire to efface Africa is given a monumental wildness of utterance:
We will uproot
Each tree
From the Ituri forest
And blow up
Mount Kilimanjaro,
The rubble from Ruwenzori
Will fill the Valleys
Of the Rift,
We will divert
The mighty waters
Of the Nile
Into the Indian Ocean.
But from the sixth section of the poem onwards, the whole nature of the statement seems to change. Now Ocol is one of those who have done well out of Uhuru. In the sixth section, with guilty defiance, he taunts the poor and dispossessed with an account of his properties—
Do you see
That golden carpet
Covering the hillside?
Those are my sheep …
and denies his responsibility for the poverty of the peasantry. And from now on, we are not sure how to take the voice of Ocol. He speaks at times in terms of an ironical observer regarding him from outside.
We sowed,
We watered
Acres of Cynicism,
Planted forests of Laughter,
Bitter Laughter …
Fat Frustrations
Flourished fast
Yielding fruits
Green as gall …
Those who stand aside from this fearful opportunism are "cowardly fools"; they must creep back and hide in their mothers' wombs. And in the eighth section there is another change in the voice—or another note enters briefly and confusingly into it. For a moment Ocol speaks with something like tenderness of the world he once shared with Lawino:
That shady evergreen byeyo tree
Under which I first met you
And told you
I wanted you,
Do you remember
The song of the ogilo bird
And the chorus
Of the grey monkeys
In the trees nearby?
But from this unexpected wistfulness Ocol turns at once to a fiercer fury than ever. He tells Lawino that there are only two alternatives:
Either you come in
Through the City Gate,
Or take that rope
And hang yourself!
The City is barely described. It is defined almost entirely by negation—by an account of what must be destroyed to clear the way for it.
And as an end to the poem there is a last storm of wildly ironical self-disgust. The monuments in the modern Africa will be effigies of its founders: Leopold of Belgium, Bismarck. Streets will be named after the European explorers. All the great men of the African past were made nothing by defeat and irrelevance.
What proud poem
Can we write
For the vanquished?
A final question that makes it impossible not to remark to oneself that such a proud poem has certainly been written, and by Okot p'Bitek: and that it was called Song of Lawino.
Song of Ocol, as fierce and powerful as anything Okot has published, seems to me very much a poem in which the author is moving towards a new position. I mean that it begins as a statement that, in the extreme violence of the view it expresses, must make it an expression of the impulse in a modern African to raze his whole world flat and begin again. Ocol, whom we had taken even at Lawino's worst estimation to be a new young African of a fairly characteristic type, turns out to be a sort of super-Tamburlaine, in his destructiveness, driven by an almost hysterical dread of the black past and much of the black present. Clearly, Okot is no more expressing the whole of his self here than he was in Lawino. It doesn't begin to be a personal statement: it is the ferociously extreme utterance of something that is in the African air. But the poet cannot keep this up: because the destructive, desperate Ocol is also one of those who have turned Uhuru into an opportunity for their own advancement. So the end of the poem, its second half, is an attack, by ironical implication, on those who have betrayed the hopes that fed the fight for independence. By the end of Song of Ocol, it seems to me, Okot p'Bitek has moved into the position that made possible the writing of this new sequence of poems, Song of a Prisoner. Certainly, to turn from his first long published poem to these last ones, he had to swivel: from teasing impersonations to impersonations that are deadly serious: from the "lightness" of which Taban lo Liyong has spoken to an unsmiling gravity. The distance between Lawino and Song of a Prisoner is, I feel, in some respects so great that added force is given to lo Liyong's suspicion that the earlier poem was in essence very early indeed.
"Only rarely," lo Liyong wrote of Lawino, "do I see an Okot with tight lips and protracted visage." That a friend who knew him so well should have looked for such an Okot, and should have based so much of his criticism of Lawino's lament on that Okot's absence, does suggest that between the jester and the more serious man an acute struggle may long have been going on. The fact is that Song of a Prisoner is throughout a work of the tightest lips, the most protracted visage. The jester has vanished; though not the user of masks. In Lawino and Ocol Okot spoke—as we have seen, with bafflingly variable degrees of convincingness—through the mouths of his characters. Much of the voice of Lawino must have been his own: and, one feels, even in its desperate extremism, something of the voice of Ocol. In this new sequence, Okot dons several such masks. The prisoner cannot be read as a single character. At times he is a kind of Patrice Lumumba, being beaten to the point of death: a betrayed hero of Uhuru. At other times he seems to be any political detainee, imprisoned for his opinions or his political actions. Again, he is an assassin, who has rid his country of a tyrant: who pretends wildly not to understand why his captors do not form a guard of honour for him.
We see, from the dedication, that the sequence is wide-spread in its reference. It makes two major statements: both familiar to us, though not in such agonised tones, from Song of Lawino. The first is that the hopes of Uhuru have been wrecked, and horribly. The state of a newly independent African country may be even worse than before, since it is worse to be devoured by your own people than by strangers. The second statement is barely a statement at all … rather it is a constant reference to a dream. As Lawino looked back at the vision of Acholi order and comeliness of life, so the prisoner constantly sets up a dream of peaceful happiness:
I have bought
A farm
In the fertile valley,
A thousand acres
Of heaven
For you and me
And our children,
The crested cranes
Dance love dances
By the stream
That flows gently
Through our garden,
Our children will play
And swim in the stream
And hook fish
For the afternoon meal …
It is the tone of Lawino's celebration of the good things in the Acholi way of life. And added to this is the longing for old prides, old understandings. The assassin yearns to go back to his village, to be received there as one who has killed from a necessity generally understood, to be cleansed and to be marked with the killer mark. It seems to me, I must say here, as widely off the point to claim that, in such passages, Okot is crying for a return to an older Africa as to make such a claim for his arguments in Song of Lawino. It is a hearking back, rather, to the past, not as a pleasing mode of life, but as an experience on which some decent order had been laid: when there were recognised ways of setting a limit to the larger tyrannies, the more intolerable greeds. In the light of this sequence, I do not see how one can continue to have any doubt as to the import of Okot's backward looking. It is, in a sense, a metaphor for a kind of forward looking—for a looking, at any rate, in any direction but towards the spectacle of modern Africa as the prisoner experiences it: where
Black corpses stream
Along the streets,
Dead to free Africa
So that they may
Suffer in
And to these elements we must add another. There is a great cry, at many points in these poems, but most clearly towards the end of the sequence, for a sort of vast international tolerance—a relaxed international order. The prisoner wants to dance all the dances of the world, to sing all the world's songs. He wants even
to dance the dances
Of colonialists and communists …
Even, that is, to span the widest gulfs of ideology and political action. There is a great weariness in this sequence of all the waste of human strife.
For all the changeableness of the masks behind which the poet sings his desperate songs, Song of a Prisoner seems to me a true sequence, as some series of poems so linked do not succeed in being. It is held together, of course, in the first place, by the pure style of the poet. There is much here that readers of Lawino will recognise—given the far grimmer context. There is, above all, and even more cunningly and evocatively used than before, the constant reference back and forth to the life of animals, insects, plants. These references are methodically placed in the sequence, so that no human event is without its gloss drawn from nature. Again, the images may be used to suggest a deceptive simplicity and sweetness, a sort of hopeless happiness: sometimes, as in "This Stupid Bitch" and "Voice of a Dove," the references to animals (in both these cases, to birds) give to the opening a soaring pleasantness that makes all the fiercer the descent into the prison, the actual use made of the image. I am struck, in many of these passages, by the absence of all strain, the effortlessness, with which Okot modulates into lyricism. He has always been a poet who seems to sing with ease: it is hard to find a phrase in his work behind which you can detect any large pretension. So with:
The yellow acacia thom tree
Lifts up her arms,
Her clean fingers
Speak soft invitations
To the yellow birds …
It may even be careless (a purist might object to the obviousness of the three adjectives in those three lines—I mean, to the obviousness with which each noun is given its adjective). But the lyricism seems always to come at the right—that is, usually, the startling—moment: to sustain this curious weaving, so characteristic of the poetry, of violence and sweetness. And once more, the effect of these images drawn from the common scenes of a continent rich in insect, animal and vegetable life is far more than decorative, or descriptive: again, this is one of Okot's devices for giving the deepest possible roots to his work. And at other times the references to nature are fierce and grim:
A stone wall
Of guns
Surround our village,
Steel rhinoceroses
Ruin the crops …
I am an insect
Trapped between the toes
Of a bull elephant …
I am struck always, as I say, by the naturalness of these images, in the sense that they arise in Okot's text with a kind of inevitability. Never behind such images was there less feeling of a mere search for colourfulness. But then, Okot can indeed—and I suppose it is partly the oral tradition that makes this possible for him—employ even a slightly bizarre figure of speech and make it seem natural: as in
Olympic athletes throw javelins
Inside my belly.
The sequence is held together, too, by the recurring or echoing themes or passages. So we are constantly in a court of law, or some other place of judgement: so the prisoner, in this of his guises or that, is perpetually being required to plead guilty or not guilty. And always he answers with another plea altogether, until, when the sequence is over, he has pleaded a great range of emotions: fear, helplessness, hopelessness, smallness (how unexpected and telling, that!), hatred … It is the entire history of the moods of imprisonment; we are swept through the whole awful landscape of imprisoned despair. And again, a theme to which the earlier poems have accustomed us appears—or perhaps it is rather a note struck than a theme. Lawino spoke so often of the manliness of her clansmen, of the masculinity and athletic pride she felt Ocol had lost. The prisoner's sense of his own fate is made more bitter by the memory of his own virility: he was a footballer and a boxer: he is a man to whom it is natural to compare the pains of hunger with javelins thrown by Olympic athletes. He had teeth that
were the
White okok birds
Standing on the back
Of a buffalo bull.
Beaten by his "uniformed brothers," refused a blessing by "our black nationalistic bishop," aware of wife raped, of children excluded from school and employment—raging against tribalism, capitalism, diseased nationalism—he thinks constantly, intolerably, of the power there once was in his own beaten body.
I spoke earlier of the dark laughter in Song of a Prisoner: and I can understand that a reader might claim that he found no laughter in this sequence, at all. I use the word in its very widest reference. It seems to me, for example, that those two companion poems, "Bonfire" and "This Stupid Bitch"—in the first of which the prisoner upbraids his dead, rotting father for choosing such a wife, and in the second of which he attacks his mother for marrying such a husband—a very dark humour is at work, using the mirror argument of these two poems to bear his meaning as to the intolerable character of tribalism, and especially of tribalism wedded to modern politics, which may exclude so many of the beneficiaries of Uhuru from all prospects in life.
In the end, when we have read and thought about these latest poems by this remarkable African, we may be left—and particularly non-Africans may be left—with a sense of having, in a dialectical sense, bitten off more than we can chew. I mean this: that we may feel (and many Africans must feel) we do not exactly know how to evaluate this apparently wideglancing attack on post-Uhuru Africa. This is no issue, especially for an outsider, to comment upon lightly. We cannot attempt to gather up the entire African experience and to say that on it Song of a Prisoner is a meaningful general statement. It is certainly no cue for a widespread disillusionment with independent Africa. All an outsider can say is that, given the disorder which colonialism brought to Africa, given the disorder in which it quitted Africa, it will take patience and nerve to rebuild African stability, and to repair what has been broken. Perhaps only a fellow Ugandan can judge Okot p'Bitek's particular case. In all respects in which it is a sequence of personal poems, it must be left to longer and more intimate judgement than we can bring to it. But Song of a Prisoner is, clearly enough, not simply a series of poems of personal experience. It is a song, agonisingly felt, most powerfully expressed, vivid and individual, about the universal experience of political imprisonment.
How can I think freely
When the very air I breathe
Has ears larger than
Those of the elephant
And keener than the bones
Of the ngaga fish?
More than Africa speaks there, and to an audience larger than Africa.
I am aware of letting Okot p'Bitek down, rather, in those last words. Of course this is a poem of very explicit personal anguish. Of course no one can doubt that Okot feels himself to be the "proud Eagle, shot down by the arrow of Uhuru." He cries out clearly enough to the "pressmen of the world":
I want to speak to you,
For the candle
Of Uhuru
Has been blown out …
I did not wish to evade this direct challenge of the poet's: but only, as (to return to the beginning) a modest early mapmaker, not to plunge into judgements of a kind not strictly necessary to a verdict on a poem or a sequence of poems. As a private reader, I have my own way of reading Song of a Prisoner. As a public critic, I can only try to account for my admiration of the poems as poems.
But I feel of them much as I have felt about Lawino. As I see it, Okot's power as a poet is of the kind that perpetually raises his work above the particular emotions and experiences—necessarily very tangled in any poet, and in him probably most severely tangled—from which it sprang. This is to be a really good poet. I don't believe anyone could seriously think about modern Africa without trying to weigh the meaning of Song of Lawino and Song of a Prisoner. I believe Lawino has an importance far beyond the boundaries of Uganda: it is, when generalised, a poem about the situation in which we all find ourselves, being dragged away from all our roots at an ever-quickening rate. I believe, as I have said, that beyond the note of alarm and anguish that it strikes as to the condition of some newly independent African countries, Song of a Prisoner is full of the despair and anger, fiercely expressed, of anyone anywhere who is politically in chains. But having said all this, one is left with a last—and perhaps, in the end, even more important—thing to say. And that is that Okot p'Bitek is a marvellous poet. I wish I could read him in his own language. But in English he has found a tone, a pattern of verse, a rhythm, that are highly original and inventive. It would not be easy to mistake Okot, in English, for anyone else. Though—and perhaps my friend Taban lo Liyong will note this—his matter is never light, his manner often is, in a sense that any writer must envy. I count him among the few masters I have read of literary mischievousness. He can modulate from one mood to another with a skill that, though startling in its effect, rarely draws attention to itself. He is a master of writing for the human voice—and sometimes, I suspect, for the animal or insect voice, too. Much in his style might be made the basis of an argument for drumming, as a musical accomplishment for a poet, in much the way that one might have said experience of the lute was a formative influence on Elizabethan verse. And finally, Okot p'Bitek, as man and poet, is one of those valuable souls who add manifestly to the gaiety of the nations, at the same time that much of what he expresses is closely concerned with their agony.
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Savoy House's Elizabeth is a beautiful Versaille-inspired crystal collection with sparkling oversized crystal pendalogues and a rich New Tortoise Shell finish with Silver accents.
Architecturally strong in an English Bronze finish with Cream Scavo glass.
The Hagen family offers sleek, streamlined style that is modern and classic. This group has a timeless appeal with a lustrous Satin Nickel finish and Soft White etched glass.
The Rothchild collection for Savoy House is designed by Federico Martinez. Dripping with beads and crystals, finished in Oxidized Silver and featuring metal candle covers for the bulbs, this luxurious collection features chandeliers, foyer lights and sconces.


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al., 1999; Ryberg et al., 1997; Tang et al., 1998). Separately, gastrin-releasing peptide has been shown to be more highly expressed in women than men for the same level of smoking (Shriver et al., 2000). The gene for this peptide is located on the X chromosome, so a double copy might result in increased levels that in turn trigger growth stimulation. Therefore, assessment of PREPs also should consider possible effects on hormonal status and differences in the effects of individual tobacco constituents in women.
Lung cancer rates differ by race and ethnicity (U.S. DHHS, 1998). Lung cancer incidence rates are highest among African-American males (112.3 per 100,000), followed by Caucasian males (73.1 per 100,000). African-American and Caucasian females have similar rates (46.2 and 43.3 per 100,000, respectively). Asian-American males and females have relatively lower rates (52.4 and 22.5, respectively), while Hispanics have the lowest rates (38.8 and 19.6, respectively). In the United States, smoking rates differ; African Americans, Hispanics, Chinese Americans, and Hawaiians tend to smoke fewer cigarettes per day than European Americans (Le Marchand et al., 1992). In the United States, Hispanic males and females tend to smoke less than nonHispanic whites, but the risks within smoking levels are similar (Humble et al., 1985). Hawaiians have a greater risk of smoking compared to Filipinos and Caucasians living in Hawaii (Le Marchand et al., 1992). The differences in lung cancer rates within smoking categories may be due to smoking topography, types of cigarettes smoked, differences in the frequencies of heritable traits, and/or environmental, lifestyle, and dietary differences. For example, Japanese have lower rates of lung cancer than persons from other countries, which may be due to the use of tobacco with lower TSNAs, more frequent use of charcoal filters, or lifestyle differences. However, the effects of these factors on lung cancer rates are small compared to the overall increased risk for use of cigarettes.
There are some data to suggest that lung cancer risk is higher in African Americans than Caucasians for a given level of smoking (Harris et al., 1993; Schwartz and Swanson, 1997). For example, Harris et al. reported an RR of 1.8 for African Americans compared to Caucasians at the same level of tobacco consumption calculated as cumulative tar intake (Harris et al., 1993). African Americans tend to smoke menthol cigarettes, while the opposite is true for Caucasians (Cummings et al., 1987). Menthol cigarettes provide cooler smoke that helps anesthetize airways (Sant'Ambrogio et al., 1991), so smoking topography might be affected (Orani et al., 1991). The greater use of mentholated cigarettes among African Americans (Cummings et al., 1987; Wagenknecht et al., 1990) is


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3 Parks near Great Falls, Montana
Malmstrom AFB, Montana 3.92 miles E
Cascade, Montana 28.5 miles SW
Fort Benton, Montana 35.83 miles NE
Great Falls, Montana (map) | (406) 452-0333
Sites: 191 | Latest Rate: $35.00 | 133 Reviews
|Clean Restrooms:
|Clean Showers:
Nov 2014 - $35.00
Certainly not fancy; the campground shows its age. The campsite we were assigned was very narrow (our tires were a little on the grass on both sides) but easily maneuvered. Several long-termers/permanents, some rather untidy campsites with much clutter around the RV. Significant road noise is ever-present. Still, everything worked well and we felt safe and secure for the couple of nights we were there. Not a resort or a state park by any means but we would stay here again, short term. - wolf59a
Sep 2014 - $36.00
We've stayed at this RV park many times over the past 8 years and appreciate that it's well maintained and consistent. It's nothing fancy but a good safe place to stay when visiting Great Falls. During our 3 night stay, we found the voltage and water pressure good. Verizon LTE and AT&T wireless signals were strong. We'll definitely stay here again. - Gyropilot
Aug 2014 - $32.00
Easy on/off from the highway although a little confusing as you have to go past the sign for the park to get to the road to turn. Luckily our GPS was spot on. Friendly staff in the office. We had a long pull thru that our truck could park on either the front or back of our fifth wheel, plus there was a bonus parking site. Utility hookups were convenient. Had a great line of sight for our satellite dish. We would stay here again. - Bob & Jo
Great Falls, Montana (map) | (406) 727-3191
Sites: 178 | Latest Rate: $64.00 | 39 Reviews
|Clean Restrooms:
|Clean Showers:
Sep 2014 - $64.00
I've read the other reviews about the tight roads, and I'd agree. We have a 36' motorhome and it was fine, but a 40' will probably scrape some branches on turns. It's very expensive too. BUT! It's a fabulous park - so heavily planted with trees, bushes, and fruit bearing plants that there's a sense of privacy everywhere we went. Despite the lateness of the season, we were able to glean some cherry peppers, zucchini, serrano peppers, and we even shook an apple or two from a tree, ducks (geese?) waddling nearby. It's like a little Eden sitting on a small hill on the edge of town. Nice size town, too. I'd definitely come again and would even consider a longer stay in future. - User3687
Aug 2014 - $45.00
Old KOA. People very friendly and helpful. Our site was very tight for our motorhome. Could not put out awning because of trees. Sites are secluded. We had to unhook before going to site even though a pull-through. - Keeponmoving
Jul 2014 - $55.00
This is a conundrum. Mostly well kept park built in 1977. Kids galore. Great pool for kids, nature trail, animals to look at, hay ride, decent breakfast for small price. Entertainment at night. Heck of a hard working staff of nice, polite kids. So, what's the problem. Streets and RV spots are narrow. Made more so by mostly well maintained trees and bushes which provide shade and privacy. Large motor homes and RVs just squeeze by. When making turns the sides of the units can drag along bush and tree branches. The first thing you see when entering the Park is the building roof. Needing replacement, it has been patched with a substance that looks like large Dinosaur dooo especially one sticking up over the front door. Secondly, 2 staff carts parked by front door making roadway more narrower. Walking behind the building to the sites there is an old driveway down to a garage growing weeds. Not maintained with a door hanging open. If your a looking for quiet time or early to bed , well, kids were shooting off fireworks until 10:59pm. Absolute quiet at 11:00pm when quiet time starts. This Park has a lot to offer to families with young kids. For others, probably not. It could be made much better by a serious review of the trees and bushes and then cutting/removing them out to allow for the sizes of modern RVs especially on road and site corners where tight turns have to made. It's obvious they do trim stuff, probably at the beginning oft he season, but then it grows out and is not re-trimmed. It needs serious maintenance work. We were here 2 nights. We would not stay here again because of the site size, hard turns, and scratching fauna. - TrekNsee
Great Falls, Montana (map) | (406) 727-8900
Sites: 30+ | Latest Rate: $35.00 | 1 Reviews
|Clean Restrooms:
|Clean Showers:
Jun 2011 - $35.00
This park has shady sites. The campground is located on site at the Montana State Fairgrounds. The roads are gravel, the sites are not level, but usable. The sites are not paved and this year they are muddy. The bathrooms/shower are located in the livestock pavilion. They are adequate at best, there is a lingering odor of livestock and we just cleaned the showers ourselves before use. There are many permanent residents and workers. We stayed here because the other affordable park was booked and another quoted us a $95/night price tag. This one was $150/week. - Joann26


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Now Playing
Central African Republic
Burned out huts and abandoned villages scar the landscape of Central African Republic. People who flee the savage violence in some parts of the country have two main concerns: food and safety.
Fed on EBU on 17 April 2007 at 18:58 GMT.
|18 April 2007
|Central African Republic
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Run Fast And Run Hard
Ryuu waited until he was certain that everyone else was far from the house, then he prepared several traps around the house.
"What are you doing?" I asked as Ryuu finished his last trap.
Wiping off some of the sweat on his forehead he replied, "Just taking some precautions." looking at his work he picked up a backpack Tatsuya left us, "Let's go and get as much of a head start as we can."
Nodding, I followed Ryuu toward the main part of the town. Port Louis was nothing of a city, more like a town, and was surrounded by forests and farming areas. We made a straight path toward the outer town area, which was much like a forest if not exactly the same. The area was full of vibrate trees and healthy greenery; moss and dead leaves carpeted the ground in thick tangled mess.
"Ryuu, are you sure this is safe?" I asked quietly, "What if Ryan brings a lot of his group mates to hunt us?"
"Don't worry Miki." Ryuu assured me, "If anything happens I'll take care of it."
I wanted to believe him, believe he could handle everything that was soon to come, but I couldn't ignore the horrid feeling in my gut that screamed trouble. I just knew something horrible was going to happen tonight, I wanted to deny the feeling but that wasn't going to happen.
"Ryuu," I whispered, "Ryuu, I'm scared."
Ryuu stopped for a moment before turning toward me, "You're scared?" I nodded slowly, "Why?"
"This is just.. I'm..." Suddenly I found myself starting to hyperventilate. As I fanned myself Ryuu Rushed to my side and helped me regain my breath.
"Breath in slowly. Hold. And then out again slowly." Ryuu soothed, "Feeling better?"
I continued the pattern until I felt less dizzy. I slowly sat myself down, with Ryuu's help, hoping to rid myself anything of the colorful spots that invaded my vision.
"I understand that you're worried," Ryuu said quietly, "but worrying about it to the point of exhaustion won't help neither of us."
"Sorry." I whispered, I wasn't really able to talk just yet.
"Let me do all the worrying, you focus on staying by me. Okay?"
I nodded quickly as I followed him down the trail he was making for us. He held my hand tightly, making sure I wasn't left behind or taken. I had to admit, despite the fact we were on the run from Ryan and the Hunters, I was a little happy to be alone with Ryuu. I felt myself blush at the thought but my dragon found it as something to agree on. I scolded my dragon but found myself outnumbered, my human also agreed with my dragon.
I hate both of you! I mentally growled at the two, though even I could hear the falsity in my voice. During my mental argument I hadn't noticed that Ryuu had stopped so a smacked into his back face first.
"Ow!" I whined, "Why'd you stop?"
Ryuu turned his head and smiled sheepishly, "Sorry."
I mumbled a bit before sensing the the absolutely stillness of the forest. There was a soul wandering these forest and I had the most sickening feel as to why that was.
"Glad you two could make it." Ryan taunted as he leaned lazily in a tree, "Setting traps at your house was smart, but killing Soko first would have been smarter."
"Soko?" Ryuu, for a short moment, was confused until he suddenly remembered Alexis' warning, "Shit."
Ryan laughed, holding his hand out to me, "Seriously Miki, what do you see in the Lizard?"
I growled at Ryan, all the hatred I muster was clearly evident in my brown eyes, "A lot more that what I see in you!"
Both Ryan and Ryuu were shocked at my declaration, Ryuu grinned at me while Ryan glared furiously at us.
In an attempt to reclaim his pride Ryan snorted, "So Lizards are your type huh? I suppose that's better than nothing, considering that it's shameful to be half-breed. To top it off, you're also a half-wit."
Ryuu and I were insulted by Ryan's comment and I could see that our reactions were what he desired. Grinning smugly Ryan gave a nod of his head and his men grabbed us.
"Ah!" I gasped as two men forced my hand behind me while three held onto Ryuu, "Ryuu!"
Ryuu growled as one of the men tried to keep his hold on him but Ryuu wasn't going to stop struggling, "You sly bastards!" another hissed and punched Ryuu in his gut.
"Ryuu!" Now I was struggling to reach Ryuu, the two men holding me were completely caught off-guard as I yanked my arms away from them, "Let me go!"
"Holy shit!" One said as he regained his hold, "She's stronger than she looks."
"Calm the fuck down bitch!" his partner shouted, slapping my face to stop me (which at that angle, it was more like he slapped my ear). Ryuu either heard or saw the man slap me because in less than a second I saw him throw off the three men who had him. Just as quickly he punch my attacker and his buddy before throwing me onto his back.
"R-Ryuu?!" I stuttered, "What-?!"
"Time we leave this party!" Ryuu flipped Ryan off as he ran away from the scene. I would have been tempted to say that we were flying but the sounds of snapping twigs and crunching leaves proved that Ryuu was running. Everything was like a blur around the sides but I could still see everything happening before us.
"Ryuu, is this really safe?" I asked worriedly, "What if there's a trap?"
He laughed, "Funny you mention that."
"Huh?" Looking toward the straight path ahead I saw a thinly wired fence blocking our path, "What the-!"
"I gotta give Ryan props for this idea but," I could hear his grin, "I'm not just any dragon!"
Before I could question that statement Ryuu lit up a fireball in his hand, he aimed it straight at the fence.
"I'm letting you know now," I shouted as he was ready to let loose his fireball, "just how unsafe I feel with you right now!"
He laughed again, "I figured you'd say that!" with that he unleashed his fireball on the thin wire, melting it like it was ice over a blaze fire. I could swear that Ryuu was grinning like a madman and surely he was proud of himself. I heard many of the Hunters swear as we escaped from their clutches, talk about sailor mouths.
"How long are you planning on running?" I asked once I felt we were far enough from the Hunters.
"Probably until we've pass a city or two." He said, "I've ran for days Miki, don't worry about me."
I narrowed my eyes at him, kind of like how Azusa does when he pisses her off, "Was that suppose to make me feel better?"
He didn't answer for a moment then said, "Well, I guess in your case, no."
I growled threateningly while he chuckled lightly, "You're asking for a kick between the legs mister!"
Suddenly he was quiet, he finally took a threat seriously. My dragon flared with concern toward him and anger toward me, apparently what I said was a big No-no. I resisted the urge to sigh in frustration toward my dragon self, if she had a voice I'd probably become freaking suicidal from how annoying she'd be.
"We can stop once we've passed the lake, okay?" Ryuu turned slightly and smiled, "We'll get some shut eye until morning at least."
Slightly glad he wasn't made at me I smiled, "Sure."
He gave me a nod before running faster than he was before, making our trip past the lake much quicker. When we stopped Ryuu didn't even look like he was running to save our hinds, he wasn't even sweating.
"We'll camp here for tonight," he said as he placed our backpack by a tree root, "Let me look at you face real quick."
I didn't want to but I still pulled my hair back so that he could inspect the slapped spot., "It doesn't really hurt that much."
"Still," Ryuu said softly as he took care of holding my hair with my hand, "I'd rather see for myself."
I made a noise in the back of my throat but didn't protest much further. He was careful when touching the slightly burning skin, his fingers only feather along my ear and partially of my cheek. Son his inspection ended and he holding my cheek while we stared at each other.
"I really did like your hair when it was long," he said in almost a whisper, "but short hair suits you too."
I blushed at the compliment, "You really think so?"
He smiled and nodded, "When Lizzy brought you back, then first thing I could think of was that your were alive. It wasn't until I noticed you hair did I realize what Ryan's real intentions were."
"I really thought he was going to kill me." I said, that memory of Ryan holding that knife brought unwanted shivers, "When he started tearing of my clothes I felt like I was being violated."
"I would say him touching you at all would be wrong," Ryuu admitted, "Had I not been able to smell your virginity I would have assumed he raped you."
"Like he wanted you to think." I whispered, "I really didn't want to see you after that."
I felt Ryuu tense, anger or offense were the only two reaction I could think he'd have at my honest feelings, "Why?"
"I was scared." I muttered, "I was scared that you'd think badly of me."
He chuckled softly, "Miki, it wasn't your fault."
"I know that but still-"
"No Miki," Ryuu placed his hands on my shoulders, looking up at him I could see the honesty in his eyes, "never think that there was something you could have done. To be honest there wasn't much you could have done, especially since you were chained."
My eyes widen as he mentioned that detail, "How'd you know I was chained?! I never-"
Ryuu grinned and tapped his nose, "My sense of smell?"
"oh.." I blushed as he tried to contain his laughter, "So how'd you smell it?"
"Metal and flowers?" His voice oozed amusement, "I'll admit I first thought it was blood but then I calmed down enough to realized that it wasn't exactly the same, blood has a more salty scent than the metal."
"Does it?"
"Yup." Ryuu hugged me for a moment before pulling me toward the spot we'd be sleeping, " You had a rough day, let's get some sleep."
I barely nodded my head as he placed me in his lap and leaned against the tree. It was obvious he wanted me to use him as a human pillow, correction, dragon pillow but I forced myself to just go with the flow. So not as easy as it looks.


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Joined: Aug 2009
Location: Shenandoah Valley riding wonderland
Oddometer: 6,971
Originally Posted by
.... I ran this tire in Colorado over mostly rock for a week and not a nick on it. It grabs wet rock well too.
I've installed a set of Michelin Desert Race on my XRL. Wow, what a dream ride and the handling is phenomenal. Wear is to be determined. Note the Unicross front lasted much longer than the Karoo rear.
Interesting; I've yet to come back from a first ride with any tire and not have nicks, or gouges, or even missing knobs. Sounds like a very robust tire. Why didn't you put another one on instead of going to the desert race?
The desert race is another costly tire. Probably very similar to the 908 in many ways. I may try one or the other one day, we'll see what opportunity may arise. As far as front/rear goes, it seems to me as if all front tires last me about three times as long as all rears! So far...
I just put a Michelin Anakee 3 rear on my street bike. First time I've tried anything but the Avon Azaro, which rides well, but I had a new one shed the tread while motoring along at 80-ish and Avon just gave me a song and dance routine and never did anything about it. So I'm done with them; the Michelin felt great on the initial ride.
Let's ride!!!
- No offense, but there've been a lot of people over time who were just as sure, yet got it wrong. - Una necedad, aunque la repitan millones de bocas, no deja de ser una necedad. - "you know that I could have me a million more friends and all I'd have to lose is my point of view" (Prine)
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