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Filed under: science fiction, Speculation | Tags: Fermi Paradox, Interstellar Travel, science fiction
Wow, didn't realize I hadn't posted in so long. I got busy with life and writing. Here's something that I was originally going to put in the book, but it doesn't really fit there. It's thoughts about how human experience might explain the Fermi Paradox.
Now, for one thing, I don't think it's much of a paradox. After all, as XKCD explained in "Alien Astronomers", it would be almost impossible for a radio telescope on Alpha Centauri to pick up our radio broadcasts. Military and research radar beams, yes, but not our ordinary chatter. One critical point is that broadcasting powerful radio signals takes a lot of energy, and that's expensive. If it's more cost effective to be efficient, then we'll do it (as we have with broadcasting and intercontinental cable) and that makes us more radio-invisible. At our current level of technology, the galaxy could be brimming with civilizations, and we couldn't see them, nor could they see us. Being blind isn't much of a paradox.
Of course, the question is, why aren't the aliens here already? If they've had even a million years' more civilization, shouldn't they have starships? Well, here's another answer: starships are expensive, because at high speeds, they're a drag. This came out of an arXiv paper (link), and the pop-sci version on Io9. The basic point is that for a starship traveling at high speeds runs into photons from the Cosmic Microwave background, and if it's traveling fast enough, those collisions generate about 2 million joules/second in energy, which seems to act like frictional energy slowing the ship down. So not only does a starship have to hit those high speeds, it has to continuously generate more thrust as particle collisions slow it down. You can't just accelerate a starship and coast to another star, except at really low speeds which would take thousands of years to get between stars. Do you know how to make a machine that continuously functions for thousands of years? That's a non-trivial challenge. So there's answer #2 for the Fermi Paradox: space isn't slick enough to coast. At high speeds, the CMB acts like an aether and causes friction, requiring continuous acceleration.
Answer #3 for the Fermi paradox is the one I was going to stick in my book, which is about what the Earth will look like if the worst predictions of climate change come to pass, and humans don't go extinct. This scenario could also explain the Fermi Paradox. Basically, in the roughly 500 years of the Industrial Revolution (and yes, I know that it was much longer in the run-up), we'll have burned through all our fossil fuels, our available radioactive elements, minable elements from aluminum to phosphorus, groundwater, and so forth. After we use up all the cheap energy and readily available raw materials, we'll be stuck recycling everything using solar and gravitational energy (or biofuels, PV, wind turbines, and hydropower, if you want mechanisms) for hundreds of thousands to millions of years, until the Earth can generate more fossil fuels. Perhaps we had a brief window in the 1970s when, if we'd gone for it and known what we were doing, we *might* have put a colony on the moon. Highly unlikely, but possible, and the chances of that colony surviving would be fairly low. We can't get to Mars now (due to little problems like radiation in interplanetary space), and if we don't get nuclear fusion to work real soon now (the 1970s would have been a good time for that breakthrough, too), we're going to be downsizing civilization pretty radically in the coming century, rather than going to Mars or beyond.
Let's assume that humans are relatively normal for sapient species, in the sense that we got our rapid spurt of technological advance by using up all the surplus energy that their planetary biosphere had squirreled away for the last 300 million years. By the time we understood the true state of our world and the galaxy, we also realized we were in trouble, because we were already going into a time of overconsumption and too-rapid population growth. By the time we are technologically sophisticated enough to possibly colonize another planet, we won't have the resources to do so. Indeed, we'll be forced to use any terraforming techniques we work out on the Earth just to keep it habitable. Once we've survived this peak experience, we'll be a mature civilization (or more likely civilizations), but we'll also be radio-quiet, highly resource efficient, and totally incapable of interplanetary travel, let alone interstellar voyaging.
That's the #3 answer to the Fermi Paradox: scientific development marches in tandem with resource extraction, and it's impossible to become sophisticated enough to colonize another planet without exhausting the resources of the planet you're on. It's possible that the universe is littered with ancient sophisticated civilizations that have already gone through their peak resource crisis and are quietly going on with their lives, stuck on their planets, kind of like kids who went to college to change the world and got stuck with crushing college debts and jobs that weren't their dreams. In our case, we've still got a billion years or so left before Earth becomes totally uninhabitable, so it's not a horrible to be "stuck" here, on the one planet we're evolved to live on. It's just sad for those of us who thought that Star Trek looked like a really cool way to live.
Filed under: economics, futurism, Speculation, sustainability, Uncategorized | Tags: brontosaur, energy use, Straight Dope
I haven't posted recently, because I've been busy with a book and life throwing things at me. Anyway, as part of research for the book (which explores the idea of what the deep future looks like if severe climate change comes to past and humans don't go extinct), I wanted to find out how much energy the average American currently uses. So I did the usual Google Search, and tripped over Cecil Adams' 2011 Straight Dope column about whether Americans use more energy than a blue whale (which was asserted in a 2009 New York Times article). He (actually his brainy assistant Una) cranked the calculation and came up with the basic answer of "no." Just for thoroughness' sake, I decided to replicate part of it.
It turns out that, in 2012 (according to LLNL), the US used 9.71 quadrillion BTUs of energy (quads), of which 4.17 quads were actually used for something and 5.56 quads were lost in the system. As of December 31, 2012, there were 312.8 million people in the US. Grinding the numbers out, converting BTUs per year into watts and assuming that the population was constant throughout 2012, I got that the US generated about 10,378 watts per person, of which about 4,457 watts was used, 5,943 watts were wasted.
So Cecil (actually Una) was basically right in saying that Americans used about 11 kilowatts of energy per capita per year. According to what they found in their research, a hundred ton blue whale used about 65 kilowatts. So if this mythical average American isn't consuming the energetic equivalent of a 100 ton blue whale, then, we're sort of vaguely equivalent to a 15 to 20 ton blue whale (they exist too–they're called calves).
While I was wallowing around, try to find the appropriate whale equivalent for this average American, it dawned on me that there's a whole other class of critters that large: sauropod dinosaurs. Of course, they're extinct, so their current metabolic rate is zero. However, it's not entirely silly to postulate that they had whale-like metabolisms back when they were alive. We don't know how much the large sauropods weighed either, but Brontosaurus (yes, I know it's Apatosaurus, I'll get back to that), is thought to have weighed in between 15 and 20 tons, if you believe Wikipedia.
In other words, the average American uses as much energy as an average brontosaurus.
Now, of course we can argue that Apatosaurus is not the right sauropod, that due to some metabolic model or reconstructed weight or other, another sauropod is a better metaphor than ol' bronty. It's an understandable but unwinnable argument, because the energy use of the average American is kind of a goofy concept too. A big chunk of that energy is used (and lost) transporting stuff around supposedly to benefit us, but we never see it. It is also averaged across everything from the energy use of a bum on skid row to that of a jet-setting star, and it's a very uneven distribution. What does average mean? Who's average? Whatever it means, the average human working an eight hour office day works pretty well on somewhere around 75 watts (resting metabolism), so we average Americans are using something like the energy of 150 humans just sitting around doing paperwork.
So, let's just say that we are, on average, the brontosaurs of the energy world, use an outdated dinosaur name as a metaphor for how much energy we consume. We're not the biggest energy uses by country, but we're pretty close.
Now you might think that this energy use means we're going to go extinct like the brontosaurs, because such energy consumption isn't sustainable. I think the truth is a little different. As humans, we can live on 75 watts, even 250 watts if we're working hard and not sitting around. It's our culture that constrains us to act like brontosaurs, and I'm pretty sure our culture is going to have to change radically if it doesn't want to disappear. Ultimately, it's a question of identity: when it's no longer possible for us to be American brontosaurs, will it still be possible for us to be Americans, or are we going to have to find, join, or develop other cultures that are more energy efficient? Who can we be in the future? That's one of the questions I'm working on.
Filed under: commons, Legacy Systems, Speculation, The Internet, Uncategorized | Tags: General Keith Alexander, Internet, Legacy System, NSA
Here I am venturing into something I know nothing about: the Internet. Recently, I read a 1999 quote from Steward Brand, in The Clock of the Long Now (BigRiver Link), that the internet could "easily become the Legacy System from Hell that holds civilization hostage. The system doesn't really work, it can't be fixed, no one understands it, no one is in charge of it, it can't be lived without, and it gets worse every year."
Horrible thought, isn't it? What I don't know about are the legions of selfless hackers, programmers, techies, and nerds who are valiantly struggling to keep all the internets working. What I do know some tiny bit about are the concerted efforts of the NSA, under General Keith Alexander (who's due to retire this spring), to install effectively undocumented features throughout the Internets and everything connected to them, so that they can spy at will. Perhaps I'm paranoid, but I'm pretty sure that every large government has been doing the same thing. If someone wants to hack us, they can.
So what?
Well, what I'm thinking about is the question of trust, rather than danger. The idea that cyberspace is dangerous goes well back before the birth of the World Wide Web. Remember Neuromancer? Still, for the first decade of online life, especially with the birth of social media, there was this trust that it was all for the greater good. Yes, of course we knew about spam and viruses, we knew the megacorps wanted our data as a product, and anyone who did some poking or prodding knew that spy agencies were going online too, that cyberwarfare was a thing. Still, there was a greater good, and it was more or less American, and it pointed at greater freedom and opportunity for everyone who linked in.
Is that still true? We've seen Stuxnet, which may well have had something to do with General Alexander's NSA , and we've seen some small fraction of Edward Snowden's revelations, about how the NSA has made every internet-connected device capable of spying on us. Does anyone still trust the US to be the good guys who run the Internet for the world? Even as an American, I'm not sure I do.
This lost trust may be the start of the Internets evolving into the Legacy System from Hell. Instead of international cooperation to maintain and upgrade the internet with something resembling uniform standards, we may well see a proliferation of diverse standards, all in the name of cyber security. It's a trick that life learned aeons ago, that diversity collectively keeps everything from dying from the same cause. Armies of computer geeks (engineers by the acre in 1950s parlance) will be employed creating work-arounds across all the systems, to keep systems talking with each other. Countries that fall on hard times will patch their servers, unable or unwilling to afford expensive upgrades that have all sorts of unpleasant political issues attached. Cables and satellites will fail and not be replaced, not because we can't afford to, but because we don't trust the people on the other end of the link to deal fairly with us and not hack the systems they connect to.
I hope this doesn't happen, of course, but I wonder. Once trust is lost, it's difficult to regain. On a global level, can we regain enough trust to have someone run the internet as an international commons? A good place? Or is it too late for that? I'm quite sure that US, Chinese, and Russian cyberwarfare experts all will say that their expertise is defensive, designed to minimize damage, and they may even believe it. Still, in the face of so many soldiers and spies amassing online, why trust our lives to this battlefield? Anything we put online might be wiped out or compromised, victim to a battle we neither wanted nor approved of.
Even though I don't have a reason to like him, it would be sad if General Alexander's legacy was starting the conversion of the internet into a legacy system. It will also be instructive too, a lesson in how the buildup of military power can backfire (something I think even Lao Tzu commented on). Fortunately or unfortunately, any history written on a legacy system will most likely vanish when the last expert walks away and the owners pull the plug. That's the problem with legacy systems, you see. Their data can vanish very, very quickly.
Filed under: commons, economics, Speculation, sustainability | Tags: commons, Elinor Ostrom, markets
This isn't my original idea. I'm reading John Michael Greer's The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered (Amazon link), and he makes the assertion that a free market, "in which buyers and sellers are numerous enough that free competition regulates their interactions," is a form of commons, a resource that should ideally be free to all in a society. He goes on to point out that this is in contrast to those who think that all commons should be eliminated in favor of private ownership. The issue he's getting at is that free markets cannot exist without regulation, something recognized even by Adam Smith, who noted in the Wealth of Nations that "people of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or some contrivance to raise prices" (reference).
I can see a long argument about how true this is, because it's a provocative concept. Markets and commons are traditionally diametrically opposed in capitalist thinking, it's hard to consider that they have anything in common. I'm happy to have that discussion, but there's another related issue that, to me, is even more interesting: Can markets be managed as commons?
We don't have any data on this, but the late Elinor Ostrom won the 2009 Nobel in economics for her studies of how commons are successfully managed. She found, through studying both successful commons (water districts, community forests, and the like) and unsuccessful commons, that there were eight "Design Principles" that distinguished the successful commons from the failures (Amazon link to reference).
Here are Dr. Ostrom's eight design principles, as rewritten by David Sloan Wilson in The Neighborhood Project (Amazon link). I'm using Wilson's version since it's more general than the original.
1. Clearly defined boundaries. Members of the group should know who they are, have a strong sense of group identity, and know the rights and obligations of membership. If they are managing a resource, then the boundaries of the resource should also be clearly identified.
2. Proportional equivalence between benefits and costs. Having some members do all the work while others get the benefits is unsustainable over the long term. Everyone must do his or her fair share, and those who go beyond the call of duty must be appropriately recognized. When leaders are accorded special privileges, it should be because they have special responsibilities for which they are held accountable. Unfair inequality poisons collective efforts.
3. Collective-choice arrangements. Group members must be able to create their own rules and make their own decisions by consensus. People hate being bossed around but will work hard to do what we want, not what they want. In addition, the best decisions often require knowledge of local circumstances that we have and they lack, making consensus decisions doubly important.
4. Monitoring. Cooperation must always by guarded. Even when most members of a group are well meaning, the temptation to do less than one's share is always present, and a few individuals might try actively to game the system. If lapses and transgressions can't be detected, the group enterprise is unlikely to succeed.
5. Graduated sanctions. Friendly, gentle reminders are usually sufficient to keep people in solid citizen mode, but tougher measures such as punishment and exclusion must be held in reserve.
6. Fast and fair conflict resolution. Conflicts are sure to arise and must be resolved quickly in a manner that is regarded as fair by all parties. This typically involves a hearing in which respected members of the group, who can be expected to be impartial, make an equitable decision.
7. Local autonomy. When a group is nested within a larger society, such as a farmers' association dealing with the state government or a neighborhood group dealing with a city, the group must be given enough authority to create its own social organization and make its own decisions, as outlined in items 1. and 6. above.
8. Polycentric governance. In large societies that consist of many groups, relationships among groups must embody the same principles as relationships among individuals within groups.
What's interesting about these rules is that, superficially, it looks like these would be great rules for free markets as well. Look at the complaints such rules would solve:
— markets should have boundaries. People get really uncomfortable when everything is for sale, whether they want it to be or not. There's a general idea that some things should not be for sale, while markets are the appropriate venue for other things. Similarly, not everyone wants to participate in "the marketplace" and the outsiders resent being forced in.
–Markets should be fair, the fabled level playing field. Most would agree that people should get special privileges only so that they can exercise special responsibilities, not because they have special connections. Similarly, corruption and gaming the system should be punished.
–Collective decision making. This one is tough, because everyone wants to constrain the fat cats, whether or not they're in the market. Still, there are many complaints about top-down rulemaking, and with good reason. This is not to say that markets are all good at self-governing (and here I'm thinking about the body-county in illegal drug marketing disputes), but to the extent that a market is self-governing, having rules that everyone agrees are fair is not a bad thing.
–Monitoring: this one is a no-brainer. Corruption kills markets, and they always need to be monitored to avoid people gaming the system. Interestingly, monitoring in commons can come either from within, from people hired to monitor the system, or from outside officials. Any and all of these can work, depending on the circumstances.
–Fast and fair conflict resolution: this one is another no-brainer. Things work best when disputes can be settled fairly and quickly, either by a tribunal within the market, or by higher authorities, so long as judgement is fast and fair.
–Local autonomy. This can be somewhat problematic when you think about Wall Street, but it's the flip side of having collective decision making within a market. If the authorities are going to let a market make their own rules, they need to let the market govern itself. Note, however, that authorities can be intimately involved in both monitoring and conflict resolution, so long as the market grants that this is their legitimate role in the market.
–Polycentric governance: This is the idea that the relationship between individuals and a markets is mirrored between markets within a greater market, if such a hierarchy exists. I'm not sure how this might work, but it does embody the same ideas of group decision making (on the level of member markets), monitoring, fast and fair dispute resolution, and so forth. That's not a bad way to handle commerce on a large scale.
To me, this is the bigger point: even if markets aren't exactly commons, it certainly looks like the principles that lead to successful commons might lead to successful free markets. Additionally, it's not particularly driven by any market ideology: both progressives and libertarians could agree on these design principles. Even the big government proponents tend to agree (in my experience) that the best regulations are the ones that people think are fair and fairly enforced. Trying to get such regulations written can be very difficult, but it's often a major goal of regulation. What also makes this interesting is that, if you accept that markets may be commons, it's possible to have a free market under a wide range of conditions—so long as the market is properly monitored and managed according to rules.
A truly free market won't work, but a market commons may well be viable. What's sad is how far Wall Street currently is from most of these design principles. Perhaps our financial markets are a lot less successful and sustainable than we might wish for? Perhaps they need (shock, horror) more regulation, not less, to last?
What do you think?
Filed under: Real Science Content, Speculation, Uncategorized, Worldbuilding | Tags: anthropocene, global warming, hobbits, Speculation
No, I haven't seen the latest offering Peter Jackson yet, but I will soon. Still, in honor of the latest, erm, extension of The Hobbit onto the big screen, I thought I'd pitch out an interesting possibility for the future of at least some of our descendents.
First, a definition: ATM isn't the money machine. Rather, it's an acronym for Anthropocene Thermal Maximum, which we'll hit sometime after we've exhausted all the fossil fuels we're willing to dig up into the atmosphere. If we blow off over something like 2500 gigatonnes of carbon, we're going to be in the range of the PETM, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (Wikipedia link) about 55.8 million years ago, when global temperatures got as hot as they have been in the last 60 million years. Our descendents' future will be similar, if we can't get that whole carbon-neutral energy economy working.
One of the interesting recent findings is that mammals shrank up to 30 percent during the PETM (link to press release). The reason given by the researchers is that increased CO2 causes plants to grow more foliage and fewer fruits (in the botanical sense, so we're talking fruits, nuts, grains, and all the other things we like to eat). This poorer nutrition led to smaller animals. I think there's another possible explanation for the decrease in animal size.
My thought was that, if civilization crashes due to radical climate change into a PETM-type world, humans will be at the mercy of the elements, so it's quite likely that future people will be smaller in size. Perhaps 30 percent smaller? Sitting down with the BMI graph and making a few assumptions, I found that the 30% smaller equivalent of a 71 inch tall male weighing 160 lbs is approximately 60 inches tall. Now, this is an interesting height, because it is the upper limit of pigmy heights in an interesting 2007 study by Migliano et al. in PNAS (link to article). Their hypothesis was that the evolution of pigmies around the world is best explained by significant adult mortality, which they adapted to by shifting from growth to reproduction earlier in their lives. The researchers found that the average age at mortality in pigmies is 16-24, and few live into their 40s. The major cause of death is disease, rather than starvation or accidents.
While I don't know of any evidence of increased animal disease during the PETM, there is good evidence for increased plant disease and predation by insects (link), so it's not much of a stretch to hypothesize that the animal dwarfing could have been caused by increased disease, decreased lifespans, and a resulting shift towards smaller body size and early reproduction.
So, here's the idea: if we blow too much carbon into the air, and our ATM rivals or exceeds the PETM, at least some of our descendents will be the size of pigmies, due to the harsher environment (more disease, less medical care) favoring people who mature earlier and have kids as teenagers. They probably won't be hobbits unless a hairy-footed morph takes off somewhere (perhaps in the jungles of Northern California?), but they will be technically pigmies.
It's not the most pleasant thought, but if short lives and statures is troubling, the good news is that post-PETM fossils show that animal species regained their former size once the carbon was out of the air. And, according to Colin Turnbull's The Forest People, life as a pigmy isn't necessarily nasty or brutish, even if it's short.
Filed under: livable future, Real Science Content, Speculation, sustainability, Syria | Tags: desalination, Syria, Syrian civil war, water politics, water war
Not that I'm an expert on foreign policy or Syria (there's someone with the same last name who is. We're not related). The one thing I do understand, a little bit, is water politics, and that's may well be one of the important drivers of the Syrian civil war. As Mark Twain said, "Whiskey's for drinking, water's for fighting over." And good Muslims won't drink whiskey. Since I'm interested in the deep future with climate change, this might be a portrait of things to come for other parts of the world, including where I live in the southwestern US.
Here's the issue: between 2006 and 2011, the eastern 60 percent of Syria experienced "the worst long-term drought and most severe set of crop failures since agricultural civilizations began in the Fertile Crescent many millennia ago," forcing 200,000 Syrians off the land (out of 22 million total in Syria) and causing them to abandon 160 towns entirely (source). In one region in 2007-2008, 75% of farmers suffered total crop failure, while herders in the northeast lost up to 85% of their flocks, which affected 1.3 million people (source). Assad's policies exacerbated the problem. His administration subsidized for water-intensive crops like wheat and cotton, and promoted bad irrigation techniques (source. I'm still looking for a description of what those bad irrigation techniques were.).
These refugees moved to cities like Damascus, which were already dealing with over a million refugees from Iraq and Palestine. They dug 25,000 illegal wells around Damascus, lowering the water table and increasing groundwater salinity (source). The revolt in 2011 broke out in southern Daraa and northeast Kamishli, two of the driest parts of the country, and reportedly, Al Qaeda affiliates are most active in the driest regions of the country (source).
One thing that worsened the problem was Turkey. The Tigris, Euphrates, and Orantes Rivers flow out of Kurdistan in Turkey into Syria. Turkey, in a bid to modernize the Kurdish region, built 22 dams on these rivers up to 2010 in the Southeastern Anatolia Project. They've taken half the water out of the Euphrates, and used it to grow large amounts of cotton within Anatolia, doubling or trebling local income in that traditionally rebellious area.
So is drought destiny? Experts caution that it's not that simple (source). In 2012, the American Midwest suffered a record drought, While that may have led to Tea Party outbursts in the 2012 elections, it didn't lead to armed insurrection. (As an aside, you can figure out how well the drought map correlates with the 2012 Presidential election map. Washington might one day take note of this…). Still, when you couple drought, poverty, bad governance, and a witch's brew of historical grievances and systemic injustice, drought can cause a civil war.
There are a couple of big problems here. The first is that the US didn't see the revolt coming. Right up until the first protests started, they thought that Syria was immune to the Arab Spring (source). This isn't all that surprising. Due to the War on Terror, the CIA and other agencies work closely with government intelligence agencies to hunt terrorists (source), and have little or no intelligence capability to learn what's happening on the "Arab Street." This led to the US missing the Arab Spring movement pretty much in its entirety. The US military has been talking about climate change for years, and they're starting to get serious about preparing to deal with it (source), but they don't seem to have a functional reporting system yet, let alone a good way to respond. To put it bluntly, no one in Washington or other capitals seems to watching things like water supplies, crop reports, rural migration to cities, or even the price of bread. Or if they are, they're not being listened to. Spikes in bread prices throughout North Africa helped prepare the ground for the Arab Spring uprisings, and the region is still a major wheat importer (source).
The second problem is that, so far, our leaders haven't officially acknowledged that water's a problem. Basically, during the drought, Syrian per capita water dropped by almost half. While a lot of this could be returned by better management, growing different crops, convincing people not to eat bread in the place where wheat was first farmed, and so forth, there are probably too many people relative to the water supply, at least during droughts. Part of this is demographics. The population of the Middle East has quadrupled over the last 60 years, and the water supply, if anything, has shrunk (source). The brutal answer is to get rid of those people, which may be one reason why Assad was so willing to use chemical weapons. There are 1.851 million registered Syrian refugees at the moment, and that's about one percent of the population outside the country. Assad (and whoever follows him) may not be interested in having them return, either. Syria likely would be more stable with fewer thirsty mouths.
What's the solution? One important part is to get water on the negotiating table. Turkey officially helps Syria with water flows, but it's not clear how diverting half a river is a friendly gesture, and the two countries are not on good diplomatic terms. If the Turks are using the Euphrates to water cotton, most of that water is lost to the air, rather than flowing back into the river where Syria can get it. Turkey could help stabilize Syria by letting more water out of its dams, but by doing so, it would risk insurrection in Kurdistan, so I don't think they will voluntarily give up that water. Since Turkey's water sources are secure for the moment, I suspect that quite a few Syrians are going to be resettling there, just as Iraqis and Palestinians are (or were) living in Damascus. More countries should volunteer to permanently take in Syrian refugees, especially in the north (as Sweden has). Why not? It increases populations in areas that are experiencing population decreases due to low birth rates, and it's cheaper than trying to fight in the Middle East. Moving people to where there's water is much less cruel than interring them in refugee camps in border deserts with inadequate resources and no hope.
One of the problems with climate change is that the northern edges of deserts are forecast to get drier, and the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin are one of those edges. If we want to avoid continual unrest in that region, it's high time we all (in the international sense) start financing regional desalination plants in the Middle East and other dry areas. This has worked to secure water for Israel. Granted, it's an energy intensive solution, but a large-scale desalination plant is cheaper than a single day of all-out ground war, US style (source).
The other lesson here is that politics and politicians matter. Drought isn't necessarily destiny, but bad water management choices can turn a chronic problem of scarce resources into a bloody war. If you want to know why I'm not a libertarian, this is why. It's nice to have liberty, but it's necessary to have water. Good politicians work to get you enough of both, and we need more of them at the moment.
Filed under: Kaiju, Pacific Rim, Real Science Content, science fiction, Speculation | Tags: Bechdel Test, Kaiju, Pacific Rim, Real Science Content
This was inspired in part by others' blogs about Pacific Rim, so credit to SVPOW and TetZoo for what follows. Ahem.
The first thought was inspired by Darren Naish's comments about the portrayal of scientists in Pacific Rim. This is scarcely news. In fact, it's even inspired a few entries at TV Tropes. Still, it's frustrating, especially when the sheer stupidity of some applied phlebotinium degrades the rest of the movie (red matter, anyone?).
There are potential solutions. Movies tend to be quite sexist, and this has inspired the Bechdel Test which is a litmus test for how women are portrayed in a piece. In order to pass, the piece must:
a. Include at least two women,
b. who have at least one conversation,
c. about something other than a man or men.
When you start thinking about the number of films that fail, you realize how biased most films are. This goes double for summer blockbusters, unfortunately.
Can we do something similar for science? I'm not as pithy as Bechdel, but my first thought was that if a film could be improved by hiring an out-of-work scientist to vet the script and including her suggestions, then it fails the test. This would catch everything from midichlorians and red matter to the continuity gaffs in all the Star Treks, the teleportation between forests in Jurassic Park and so forth.
Now, movie types typically argue that scientists are such a tiny percentage of the audience that there's no point in catering to them, but that misses the point of the test. This test is more in line with Van Halen's requirement in their contracts that there be no brown M&Ms backstage. The point of this bizarre-seeming contract clause was that Van Halen at the time was touring with a huge, heavy and technically sophisticated stage rig. Their contracts ran to dozens of pages, and included things like making sure the stage they were to perform on wouldn't collapse under the weight of all their props. The no-brown-M&Ms clause was actually there for safety. if they spotted brown M&Ms in the bowl, they would immediately know that the venue managers hadn't bothered to read the contract. At that point, they'd have to immediately check every other show detail, to make sure that nothing collapsed and no one died during their show.
When a movie is stupid about the science, it's often stupid about a lot of other things too, things that everyone notices, like a crappy plot or cardboard stock characters. Get too stupid and the movie flops. Compared to that, getting a scientist to vet the script is pretty cheap.
Now, let's turn to Pacific Rim. At this point, I haven't seen it (and since Darren and
Mike Matt have seen it multiple times, I'm not sure they need my ticket money). Be that as it may, I'd like to suggest what would really happen to any kaiju, including godzilla, that was stupid enough to make repeat visits to our little world.
Here's the fundamental stupidity about these giant kaiju films. It's all about killing cities. Yes, this would certainly happen the first few times, at least until someone ran an analysis on a kaiju corpse. See, kaiju are biophysically impossible as we understand reality, so if they did exist, they'd be absolutely full of bizarre chemistry. In Pacific Rim, this is all treated as hazardous waste and black market rhino horn stand-ins. But in real life, each corpse would be a gold-mine for the transnational, immensely sophisticated, chemical industry. It doesn't matter whether you're rendering Godzilla down for radionucleotides to supply the chronic shortages of medical isotopes, or rendering the blood of PR Kaijus down for all that ammonia, which is a major feedstock for both fertilizers and explosives. Those giant things are too valuable to nuke.
So if our world was invaded by kaiju, here's what I suspect would happen. First, people would hack kaiju communications to figure out how to lure them or repel them (much as the Allies hacked U-Boat communications in WWII and routed the entire force. Controlling attack subs from a central hub is self-defeating). Then they'd build giant killing pens, probably on the coast of China (note that I'm suggesting this not due to any bias against China, but because they have become chemical suppliers to the world, and they've got the huge infrastructure needed to deal with the influx of kaiju products). Once these facilities were built, fleets would lure and drive kaiju into these kill-zones, dispatch them humanely, perhaps with a bunker busting guided bomb to the back of the skull dropped from 10,000 feet, and render their carcasses for everything we could get out of them. Rather than shutting the rift down, we'd probably drop a note in, asking the kaiju masters to send more kaiju (NSFW link). For all I know, bringing in kaiju this way would render our industrial civilization a bit more sustainable, since we would have outsourced production of some highly dangerous chemicals to another planet.
Yes, I understand that Pacific Rim runs on awesome, and that what I just suggested would be titanically not awesome, more in line with The Cove than with what actually made it to the screen. In fact, given Hollywood's limited set of plots, the only movie they would make out of this scenario is some blue-eyed mother kaiju being mercilessly herded to her doom on the industrialized China coast, with impractical environmentalists' efforts to save the noble beast from certain destruction. But there's something a little sad in this whole exercise. It's not just the bad science, it's the lack of vision. Hollywood can only think to make kaiju in one mode: destroying coastal cities. There's little creativity, it's all replaying a trope that first showed up in 1954. The Japanese were more inventive with their kaiju, but Hollywood's creativity has been leached out by the monstrous budgets they play with, since investors far prefer predictable ROI to untested creative productions. Personally, I think that adding a little real science, along with that massive dose of creativity that real science inevitably brings, would spice up the whole enterprise. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone in the industry (outside the SyFy Channel) would agree with me. And so it goes.


text:
I remember a passage of rabbinic imagination. Rabbi Yochanan in the Talmud
asserts that God also prays. What does God pray and to whom? "May it be My
will that My mercy may suppress My anger and My mercy may prevail over My other
attributes and that I deal with My children in the attribute of mercy and
beyond the lines of justice." God prays that the quality of love within
Him should prevail over the quality of strict justice and punishment. And what
do we pray? Let's look at the focal point of Yom Kippur liturgy.
No less than ten times during the Day of Atonement, the Ashamnu and Al Chet are
repeated. Ten times we strike the left side of the chest with our right fist,
each time the word "chatanu"
is said. No two persons do it the same way. Some strike the chest with fierce
energy, a sort of self-flagellation. Some do it gently, softly, caressingly.
Behind that body language lies two philosophies. For there are many ways to
deal with sin, transgression, guilt, and the desire for repentance.
There are many layers to explore. Some of the confessions are recited in
public. They are for the sins of society in which we live and take a part. They
are led by the Cantor and repeated by us all: Ashamnu, Bogadnu, Gazalnu, all public, all aloud.
But there are confessionals that are only recited privately during the
silent, meditative prayer. During that time the individual specifies the sins.
These sins must not be recited out loud. They are not for a neighbor to hear.
What does the Al Chet deal with?
Firstly, notice that they do not deal with violations of ritual laws between
man and God. They do not deal with the violation of the Sabbath or dietary laws
or not coming to the Synagogue. Secondly, they deal with matters that are not
subject to litigation. Its not a matter for the courts. There are no witnesses
to be summoned, except one's self.
The Al Chet deals with the inner
life, with the injuries that we do to others and to ourselves beyond the reach
of the law. The Al Chet deals with the life of the emotions. This is
important to stress because there is a stereotypic notion that Judaism is
concerned only with the outward acts, only with deeds. But that is entirely
misleading. No one put it clearer than Maimonides in his Laws of Repentance 7:3:
"Do not say that one needs only
repent of evil deeds such as fornication, violent robbery or theft. He needs to
investigate and repent of evil dispositions that we may have such as hot
temper, jealousy, quarrelsomeness, cynicism, eager pursuit of wealth or honors,
greediness in eating and so on. These attitudes are graver than acts. For when
one is addicted to them it is difficult to give them up. Therefore it is said
in Isaiah 55:7, 'Let the wicked forsake his way and the man of iniquity his
Thoughts are important. What we believe is important. Our inner beliefs
affect our feelings. What we believe affects how we deal with our environment,
with our fears, depressions, loneliness, crises. As the book of Proverbs puts
it "As a man thinketh so he is."
To believe and to know what and why you believe affects the way you handle
On Rosh Hashanah, I referred to the two cultures in our Synagogue, and one
of them is found in the study. Individuals come with problems. They do not come
to me as a lawyer, they do not come to me as a psychologist. I used to think
that the presenting problem, the problem they articulated, was only prima facie, superficially religious,
that they mask their emotional problem with more respectable religious
concerns. But I have come to realize that they intuitively and correctly see a
connection between their image of God and their image of their selves, that
their concern is theological.
They come with heart sickness. Unlike the more sanitized public
confessional, in my study the language is specific, concrete and highly
personal. The language and the problems are filled with hatred, anger,
jealousy, revenge, confessions of betrayal in the world of business and
infidelities at home and genuine feelings of guilt.
It is a different Jew that I encounter in the study. As opposed to the
sanctuary, in the study no one has ever said to me "Rabbi, keep it
short." Here, in the study, no one has ever claimed that he is bored and
no one has ever complained that what we are speaking about is repetitive.
What do they want? Some of those who come are burdened with guilt and ask
for judgment: right or wrong, guilty or innocent. But invariably as the
conversation deepens, it enters into the area of belief. They want Jewish
belief, Jewish wisdom and they want a personal connection, a personal way of
"Rabbi, look at me. I am 54 years of age and I have made a mess of my
life. I am a disappointment to my parents and to my children and to my wife. I
am a failure. I don't like myself. I don't know whether I can start again,
whether I can go back to my wife after the separation. I cannot forgive myself.
But above all I want a breath of sanctity in my life. I want forgiveness. I
want to make repentance."
Now he is here, and this is the Day of Atonement. What does the culture of
the sanctuary, what does Jewish wisdom have to say to him?
I turn to the Talmud Yoma (86b). There we find a discussion that
distinguishes between two ways, two philosophies, two modes of tshuvah -- of turning your life around.
One of them is called tshuvah m'yirah,
repentance out of fear. The other is called tshuvah
m'ahava, repentance out of love.
Fear-repentance we know best. Its fingerprints are all over the Machzor. We
will find it in dozens of prayers. God knows the secrets of the heart. "Thou art acquainted with our sins of
presumption and ignorance. What are we? What is our life? What is our goodness?
What is our righteousness? What is our help? What shall we say before Thee? Are
not the mightiest like naught before Thee and the men of renown as though they
were not?" And then at the end of the Al
Chet the series of transgressions for which we should incur forty lashes,
chastisements, flagellation, untimely death, excision.
And after the litany of confessions, this statement: "Lord, before I
was formed I had no worth and now that I am formed I have no worth. Dust am I
in my life, and even more so in my death. Behold I am before Thee like a vessel
filled with shame and confusion. May it be Thy will, O Lord our God, that I sin
no more and as for the sins I have committed before Thee, purge them away in
Thine abundant mercy but not by means of suffering and affliction."
"Yes Rabbi. That's exactly the way I feel. I'm filled with shame and
confusion." This is the man who has borne "the dark night of the soul."
For the sins he has acknowledged he
needs punishment and he fears it. He seeks repentance, an interesting term
which is derived from the Latin "poena,"
which means pain. He must suffer pain to expiate. Expiation is another
interesting term derived from the Latin "piare," to appease. The intent of fear repentance is
punishment for the sake of acquittal. Punishment for the sake of appeasing God.
The goal is to "forgive and forget." As on Tashlich, cast the sins into the waters,
bury them in the seas. Get rid of the burden. The goal is "kapparah," which is acquittal. And
that term has filtered down into folk psychology in the notion of shlogen kaporres. To place the sins upon
a hen or rooster and to substitute it for your deserving punishment.
When I broke a dish, my bubbe would console me, "Zoll doss sein a kapparah far dir."
There is a bumper sticker that has captured this idea of expiation. It reads,
"The man who can smile when things are going badly has just thought of
somebody else to blame."
Fear-repentance in the shul is like my going to traffic school. I confess. I
had to go (it wasn't my fault of course. Who could see the stop sign hidden by
the luxuriant leaves of the trees on Hayvenhurst?) I went not to learn, but to
have the citation expunged from the record, all for the sake of retaining my
insurance premium. So I prayed off my ticket. It was annoying, repetitious,
boring, and I soon forgot about it. That's fear-repentance.
But according to the Jewish tradition, fear-repentance is not the highest
form of tshuvah. The highest form of tshuvah is love-repentance. For love-repentance
can not only lead to the expiation of the transgression, but converts the
transgression into something meritorious. It makes a virtue out of a sin.
How do you repent out of love? You have to respect the image of God in you.
And that includes a certain respect for your sins as well. It is emphasized in
the Kaballah and in Chassidic literature,
and recalled in the philosophy of J. B. Soloveitchik, "However great a
man's transgression may be it cannot ever penetrate the innermost core of his
soul." Whatever the transgression there is an aspect that remains pure,
holy and precious. You must repair the damage, but in the process of repentance
don't destroy the image. Do not supplant the faith in the image of God with a
doctrine of original sin.
Respect the person who has failed, who has injured, who admits culpability.
Again, it is Maimonides in his Laws of Repentance (7:4) who puts it
succinctly: "Let not the penitent
suppose that he is kept afar from the merits attached by the righteous. This is
not so. He is beloved and precious in the eyes of his Creator and his reward is
great. He, the penitent, has tasted sin, renounced it and overcome his evil
passions." Therefore the sages in the Talmud declare, "In the place where
penitents stand, even the holy righteous cannot stand."
How then do you repent out of love? In respecting yourself, you must include
your sins. Respect, from the root "rescipere,"
means to think again. Do not hastily drown your transgression in oblivion, for
it is too important to be cast aside. Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev suggests a
brilliant homily: "On Rosh Hashanah, on Tashlich, you cast sins into the
waters, but on Sukkoth we sing with the prophet Isaiah 17:3, 'With joy shall ye
draw waters from the wells of salvation.'" In love repentance you lift up
the net and retrieve the sins that were cast away in fear, and turn them into
song and strength.
The Jewish theology behind this notion is based on the belief that sin is
not devoid of some worth. Poetically, it is described in the Zohar (III 80b).
"When God created the world, light and darkness were wrapped in one
another. Therefore light emerged out of darkness...so too from goodness issues
evil and from mercy issues judgment, and all are intertwined, and good impulse
and the evil impulse."
So search your sins with love to discover the spark buried in the husk.
Moshe Leib of Sassov said, "Where will you find the spark except by
combing through the ashes?"
I surely am not proud of all my dispositions. But in the prayers of my
heart, I know behind so much of my ambition, my drivenness, my anger, my
jealousy, is a yearning to be recognized, to be approved of and to be loved. In
the quiet moments of prayer when I think about my sins I recognize how
desperate is my need to be loved and how twisted my longing for approval has
become because of my frustration.
When I become a filter to the family album we call Torah, I know myself. Why
did the brothers turn against Joseph and seek his death? Because of their
unrequited love for father, Jacob. His favoritism, the coat of many colors,
felt like rejection by their father. They heard too often from him and it hurt
them deeply to hear him say, "Why can't you be like your brother
Joseph?" The evil and good dispositions are intertwined.
And wasn't Esau's hatred against Jacob provoked by father Isaac's first
blessing upon Jacob? He hates Jacob but he issues a plaintiff cry, "Have
you no blessings for me Papa?"
And Cain murdered Abel because his sacrifices, meager as they were, were
rejected by God in favor of the sacrifices of Abel. "Accept my limited
gifts Papa." And when he thought that he received no respect from the Lord, Cain
rose to slay his brother.
Sift through the ashes of the sin, and you will find it intermingled with
noble motivation, arrested by frustration and stupidity.
What to do with them, with the sins that are foul, that spread a stench over
our lives? Consider the symbol of the katoreth,
the incense of the Day of Atonement. Why should the mixture of the incense to
be burned in the innermost sanctum of the Temple
include galbanum, one of the most odoriferous spice? It is meant to instruct us
that when you take evil and understand it and use it for your growth, then it
may be mixed with the good, and it may be elevated. On the Day of Atonement,
incense mixed with galbanum is burned. On that very day, evil ascends to the
Holy of Holies to be sanctified. So before we even began the Kol Nidre, our
tradition deliberately introduced in the thirteenth century the paragraph, "By the authority of the heavenly court
and this holy congregation we declare it lawful to pray with the sinner."
A public fast where there are no Jewish transgressors to participate is no
fast. "For behold the aromatic odor of the galbanum is unpleasant but it was
included among the fragrant spices of the incense offering." (Keritoth 6b)
Transgression must be recalled and respected. What happened to the broken
tablets of the law which fell from Moses' hands when he descended from the
mountain and beheld the sins of the golden calf? What did they do with the
broken tablets, a reminder of the humiliation and betrayal of the people? Were
these broken tablets buried, blotted out of memory? We are told that the broken
tablets were placed in the Ark of Holiness along with the whole tablets. For
the memory of that stumbling, that transgression gives us a reminder, an
awareness of the temptation of idolatry. The tablets that were broken are holy.
As the Chassidic saying has it, "Nothing is more perfect than a broken
Love repentance is not cheap sentimentality. Love repentance does not say
"forgive and forget." Love repentance
says "remember and transform." Love
repentance is based upon wisdom, upon the Jewish reality principle.
Consider the wisdom of love from a legal disputation in the Mishnah of
Gittin (5:5). What is the law if Chayim stole a beam of wood and built it in
the structure of his home and then his theft was discovered?
The house of Shammai says the law is clear. Chayim has to return the beam.
And if the beam has been placed in the structure of his home, let him demolish
his home and restore the stolen property to its owner. And even is he has to
travel to Media, he must do it himself and not send it with an agent, not even
is son.
The house of Hillel says let him pay the worth of the beam. He need not
demolish his home. This latter reply of the house of Hillel was adopted and
called by the sages takkanath ha-shavim
-- the repair for the sake of the penitents. It is based upon a Jewish reality
principle. Do not place so severe an obstacle in the way of the penitent that
it will be onerous for him to make restitution. Remember: the goal of
repentance is to change the heart and transform the person, not to humiliate
the penitent.
The reality principle of Judaism which is essential to the understanding of
Judaism itself aims for balance. In the matter of dealing with your
transgression, the belief that you are created in God's image must be balanced
with the admonition, "you are not God." Consider the meaning of this dialectic. There
are two apparently contradictory views of the self both of which block
transformation of the self. One is under evaluation of the self and the other
is over evaluation of the self.
We have heard the voice of the under evaluated self. "I am nothing but
dust. I am worthless." But there is another side of the self which is
engaged in over evaluation that is equally harmful. On the surface of things he
appears to be full of conceit, pride, and arrogance. But after speaking with
him and with so many people, it is clear that he has been afflicted by a
blessing turned into a curse. It is perfectionism and it haunts our lives and
turns us into well-meaning masochists. Perfectionism is a great obstacle before
change and repentance.
Where does perfectionism come from? Does it perhaps come from parents who,
well intended, raised us to believe, "You can do anything you want to do"
? Or, "If you set your heart upon it there is nothing that you cannot
accomplish. There is nothing that you cannot be…" ?
I hear them in the study. It is well meaning in its intent, but over and
again we have heard how it's internalized voice insists, "You must excel.
You must surpass all others. Thou shalt not fail." The voice that would
motivate us insists, "I will accept nothing less than excellent" and is
translated into a threat. "If you are less than excellent, you are not
acceptable." "If you are not on the Dean's list, if you don't get
into that college, if you don't succeed in your business or in your career or
in your marriage, you will lose your lovability.
That is the dybbuk that haunts so many people. That benign motivation
translates into fear. Perfection is driven by fear – fear of failure, fear of disappointing others,
fear of disapproval, fear of withdrawal. The greatest terror of perfection is
being ordinary, of being average.
Perfectionism spawns a spider's web of "all or nothing" thinking
over our life. "All or nothing" –I am genius or moron, I am success
or failure, I am accepted or rejected. For the perfectionist there is no middle
ground, there is no compromise. The exalted standard of perfection is frozen
into hardness, into unforgiving, stubborn commitment. The perfectionist cannot
admit fault or error. Admission of imperfection is to him failure and failure
means rejection. The trail of the serpent perfectionist is over all our lives.
Why is it so hard to say "I'm sorry"? Because perfectionism sees
it as a confession of weakness. And weakness is a sign of imperfection, and
imperfection will be punished by abandonment and rejection.
Perfectionism on everybody, not less on yourself. Perfectionism inadvertently
turns into cruelty. Perfectionists have a difficult time to forgive others or
themselves. Maimonides, in his Laws of Repentance 2:10, says, "It is forbidden to be cruel
and not allow yourself to be appeased." Do not bear a grudge against
"What a man thinks, he is." Judaism's reality principle here
demonstrated on the Day of Atonement offers deep insight. It helps us
understand that we all fail, that we are all flawed, that we are all blemished,
that there is no one who has walked the face of this earth who having done good
has not transgressed.
That wisdom is expressed in Jewish philosophy. The religious, metaphysical
critique of perfectionism is based upon Jewish insight expressed in a Midrash
Genesis Rabbah 11:6, "Nothing is created perfect. Whatever was created on
the first six days requires preparation. The mustard seed needs to be
sweetened, the wheat needs to be ground, the lupine needs to be soaked and man
needs to be repaired."
Nowhere in the whole of the Bible or in the Talmud does it say "be
perfect." To the contrary, the myth of
Adam and Eve banished out of the Garden of Eden, the garden of perfection, is
to instruct us that we are not perfect and that the environment which surrounds
us is not perfect. But the rabbis add that when Adam and Eve were banished from
the Garden they were given hope and power. They were given repentance.
Repentance out of love means then acceptance of imperfection. We are, all of
us, able to become better, but we are never able to become perfect. On the Day
of Atonement, the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies, fell upon his hands
and knees and cried out, "I have sinned. I have transgressed. I have
That is the reality principle of Judaism to establish a delicate balance in
our lives: "I am created in the image of God" and "I am not God."
I am a finite being with talents to
dream of infinity. I am a mortal being with a capacity to yearn for
immortality. I am an imperfect being who can imagine perfection.
So, we are asked not to bury the sin and not to be dominated by the sin. We
are asked to resurrect from the watery graves of oblivion the injuries we have
done to others and ourselves and use them to raise us up. So, the highest form
of tshuvah is that of love. To accept
your imperfection with loving repentance is to recreate yourself.
There are two ways at least of seeking tshuvah,
out of fear or out of love; but the greater way is repentance out of love. I
ask of you to consider that you beat your chest not to punish it but to do it
softly in order to redeem your heart and to remember with love. Our goal is not
to wipe the slate clean but to turn another leaf. I end with the sermon that
was preached by the Rabbi of Ger. "What would you? Rake the muck this way,
rake the muck that way. It will always be muck. Have I sinned or have I not
sinned? What does heaven get out of it? In the time I am brooding over it, I
could be stringing pearls for the delight of heaven."
Back to Rabbi Harold M.
Schulweis' SERMONS

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Ready for glitterific glasses? Here they are. And you need them for your next party, don't you? The only supplies are glitter, Mod Podge and painter's tape, so it doesn't get much easier than that. You can hand wash these, and please remember to keep the Mod Podge far enough down so it doesn't touch your lips (it's non-toxic, but that doesn't mean you should eat it!). These are so pretty that you should make some. Visit the tutorial below to learn how.
Glitter wine glasses at The Sasse Life


text:
How to Make a Tutu Dress
Want to make a tutu dress for your child? Here's a fun, no-sew way to make a tutu dress.
1Take your measurements. Figure out how long the dress needs to be (approximately the length from armpit to knee on the child). Add a 2 inches (5 cm) to this number, as the dress will poof out a lot. Further, measure the child around her chest and back, right under her armpit. This is where the elastic will sit.Ad
2Cut the fabric. On a flat surface, cut your tulle into strips that are twice as long as the length measured above.
- For example, if the child measures 12 inches (30.5 cm) from armpit to knee, you add 2 inches (5 cm) to get 14 inches (35.5 cm), and then double that number to get 28 inches (71 cm). So, you should cut the tulle into 28 inch (71 cm) long strips.
3Cut the elastic. Cut out a piece of elastic 2 inches (2.5 cm) longer than the measurement of the child around her chest.
- For example, if the child is 12 inches (30.5 cm) around the chest and back, cut a piece of elastic 14 inches (35.5 cm) long.
4Attach the ends of the elastic. Use a hot glue gun to the glue the ends of the elastic to make a loop.
- If you'd like this to be more secure, you can sew the elastic, but it is not necessary.
- To make the dress more comfortable, you can glue gun (or sew) a cotton headband to the underside of the elastic band, inside the dress. Alternatively, you can use the ribbon and loop the ribbon between the loops of tulle and around the elastic to essentially wrap the elastic.
5Tie tulle strips to the elastic. Fold a strip of tulle in half. Stick the looped side under the elastic, and pull the loose ends through the loop to secure. Repeat with the rest of the tulle. If you are using more than one color, alternate the colors of the tulle.
6Make straps. Tie two ribbons long enough to hold the dress up on your child on the elastic, with about 5 to 7 inches (12.7 - 17.8 cm) of elastic between the ends of one strap. Again, this number will vary depending on the size of your child, and may be easier to estimate if you put the dress on your child before tying the straps on.
7Put on the dress. To dress the child, put the dress on all the way up to her armpits and tie a ribbon around her waist. Although this is optional, you can glue on plastic decals such as flowers and rhinestones on the ribbon to add a decoration.
8You're done! Enjoy the sight of your child in such a cute dress.Ad
We could really use your help!
Calorie Conversion?
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internet sleuthing?
- This dress is fairly easy to create, and makes a fantastic and easy costume. Buy tulle in whatever color you need it to be, and you can make a costume dress.
- Young children tend to be adverse to the idea of wearing any kind of clothing. Therefore, they might protest to wearing this dress, no matter how cute they look. Unfortunately, this guide has no solution for this.
Things You'll Need
- 3-5 rolls of tulle in any color, depending on the size of your child (preferably in rolls that are 6 inches/15.25 cm wide and 25 yards/22.9 meters long)
- Elastic ribbon
- Cotton headband (optional)
- Satin ribbon
- Hot glue gun
- Flat surface
- Flower decals (optional)
Article Info
Categories: Sewing Clothing Accessories
In other languages:
Deutsch: Wie man ein Tutu Kleid macht, Português: Fazer um Vestido de Tutu e Tule, Français: faire un tutu, Español: hacer un vestido tutú, Русский: сделать платье пачку, Italiano: Realizzare un Vestito a Tutù, 中文: 制作儿童芭蕾舞裙, Bahasa Indonesia: Membuat Gaun Tutu
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 207,149 times.


text:
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The term persistent vegetative state was coined in 1972 to describe an unconscious state in which sleep and wake cycles remain and eyes may open, but there is no thinking, feeling, or awareness of one's surroundings (although one may react reflexive to certain stimulations). The brain stem is usually relatively intact but the cerebral cortex is severely impaired. It is this state that sometimes results from resuscitation and life support of people who otherwise would have died; partial emergence from such a state sometimes occurs with a year or two, but not after that.
In medicine, a coma (from the Greek κῶμα koma, meaning deep sleep) is a profound state of unconsciousness. A comatose person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to pain or light, does not have sleep-wake cycles, and does not take voluntary actions.
Coma may result from a variety of conditions, including intoxication, metabolic abnormalities, central nervous system diseases, acute neurologic injuries such as stroke, and hypoxia. A coma may also result from head trauma caused by mechanisms such as falls or car accidents. It may also be deliberately induced by pharmaceutical agents in order to preserve higher brain function following another form of brain trauma, or to save the patient from extreme pain during healing of injuries or diseases. The underlying cause of coma is bilateral damage to the Reticular formation of the midbrain, which is important in regulating sleep.
If the cause of coma is not clear, various investigations (blood tests, medical imaging) may be performed to establish the cause and identify reversible causes. Coma usually necessitates admission to hospital and often the intensive care unit.
The severity and mode of onset of coma depends on the underlying cause. For instance, deepening hypoglycemia (low blood sugars) or hypercapnia (increased carbon dioxide levels in the blood) initially causes mild agitation and confusion, then progressing to obtundation, stupor and finally complete unconsciousness. In contrast, coma resulting from a severe traumatic brain injury or subarachnoid hemorrhage can be instantaneous. The mode of onset may therefore be indicative of the underlying cause.
In the initial assessment of coma, it is common to gauge the level of consciousness by spontaneously exhibited actions, response to vocal stimuli ("can you hear me"?), and painful stimuli; this is known as the AVPU (alert, vocal stimuli, painful stimuli, unconscious) scale. More elaborate scales, such as the Glasgow coma scale (see below), quantify individual reactions such as eye opening, movement and verbal response on a scale.
In those with deep unconsciousness, there is a risk of asphyxiation as the control over the muscles in the face and throat is diminished. As a result, those presenting to hospital with coma are typically assessed for this risk ("airway management"). If the risk of asphyxiation is deemed to be high, doctors may use various devices (such as an oropharyngeal airway, nasopharyngeal airway or endotracheal tube) so safeguard the airway.
Once a person in a coma is stable, investigations are performed to assess the underlying cause. These may be simple, such as, a computed tomography scan of the brain is performed to identify specific causes of coma, such as hemorrhage.
Two scales of measurement often used in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) diagnosis to determine the level of coma are the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) and the Ranchos Los Amigos Scale (RLAS). The GCS is a simple 3 to 15-point scale (3 being the worst and 15 being that of a normal person) used by medical professionals to assess severity of neurologic trauma, and establish a prognosis. The RLAS is a more complex scale that has eight separate levels, and is often used in the first few weeks or months of coma while the patient is under closer observation, and when shifts between levels are more frequent.
The outcome for coma and vegetative state depends on the cause, location, severity and extent of neurological damage. A deeper coma alone does not necessarily mean a slimmer chance of recovery, because some people in deep coma recover well while others in a so-called milder coma sometimes fail to improve.
People may emerge from a coma with a combination of physical, intellectual and psychological difficulties that need special attention. Recovery usually occurs gradually — patients acquire more and more ability to respond. Some patients never progress beyond very basic responses, but many recover full awareness. Regaining consciousness is not instant: in the first days, patients are only awake for a few minutes, and duration of time awake gradually increases.
Predicted chances of recovery are variable owing to different techniques used to measure the extent of neurological damage. All the predictions are based on statistical rates with some level of chance for recovery present: a person with a low chance of recovery may still awaken. Time is the best general predictor of a chance of recovery: after 4 months of coma caused by brain damage, the chance of partial recovery is less than 15%, and the chance of full recovery is very low.
The most common cause of death for a person in a vegetative state is secondary infection such as pneumonia which can occur in patients who lie still for extended periods.
Occasionally people come out of coma after long periods of time. After 19 years in a minimally conscious state, Terry Wallis spontaneously began speaking and regained awareness of his surroundings. Similarly, Polish railroad worker Jan Grzebski woke up from a 19-year coma in 2007.
A brain-damaged man, trapped in a coma-like state for six years, was brought back to consciousness in 2003 by doctors who planted electrodes deep inside his brain. The method, called deep brain stimulation (DBS) successfully roused communication, complex movement and eating ability in the 38-year-old American man who suffered a traumatic brain injury. His injuries left him in a minimally conscious state (MCS), a condition akin to a coma but characterized by occasional, but brief, evidence of environmental and self-awareness that coma patients lack.


text:
New and Published Books
1-7 of 7 results in Transport, Development and Sustainability Series
- Page:
- 1
Unfare Solutions
Local Earmarked Charges to Fund Public Transport
Series: Transport, Development and Sustainability Series
Transport policy is an increasingly difficult area for all national governments and regional/local authorities. Tackling car use and realising a sustainable transport system appears to be very difficult. Developing public transport is seen as an increasingly important element in improving the...
Published January 14th 2013 by Routledge
Unsustainable Transport
City Transport in the New Century
Series: Transport, Development and Sustainability Series
This book addresses the links between transport and sustainable urban development, from an analysis of the global picture to issues in transport and energy intensity, public policy and the institutional and organisational constraints on change. The central part of the book explores these links...
Published May 3rd 2005 by Routledge
Barriers to Sustainable Transport
Institutions, Regulation and Sustainability
Series: Transport, Development and Sustainability Series
The complexity of transportation systems and their negative social and environmental effects are today at the centre of attention. This book focuses on the impact of institutions and regulatory systems on transport systems and travel behaviour. While institutions appear to play an important...
Published November 25th 2004 by Routledge
Transport Planning
2nd Edition
Series: Transport, Development and Sustainability Series
Transport is central to many of the current planning and policy debates. Completely revised and restructured, the new edition of Transport Planning describes the evolution of transport policies and planning, linking the past with the contemporary and future debates. It is divided into two main...
Published May 9th 2002 by Routledge
Experimenting for Sustainable Transport
The Approach of Strategic Niche Management
Series: Transport, Development and Sustainability Series
Technological change is a central feature of modern societies and a powerful source for social change. There is an urgent task to direct these new technologies towards sustainability, but society lacks perspectives, instruments and policies to accomplish this. There is no blueprint for a...
Published February 21st 2002 by Routledge
The Politics of Mobility
Transport Planning, the Environment and Public Policy
Series: Transport, Development and Sustainability Series
Transport issues are critically embedded in everyday life. For this very reason, ways of addressing such issues are almost always hugely politically contentious, as a quick glance at local and national media will testify. Such contentiousness is growing as ever increasing mobility for many in...
Published October 25th 2001 by Routledge
European Transport Policy and Sustainable Mobility
Series: Transport, Development and Sustainability Series
It is now widely accepted that transport is becoming increasingly unsustainable and that strong policy intervention is required to reduce both the growth in transport demand and the environmental costs of transport. This book challenges conventional approaches to transport by moving away from trend...
Published October 26th 2000 by Routledge
- Page:
- 1
Forthcoming Books
Barriers to Sustainable Transport: Institutions, Regulation and Sustainability
To Be Published August 21st 2015


text:
True Blood
Who Swallowed the Better Witch Ghost: Lafayette or Marnie?
You know what's even tastier than Tru Blood? Witch ghosts! Open wide, there might be one trying to fly into your mouth right now! Lafayette and Marnie both had a delicious course of witch spirit during Episode 4.6 of True Blood "I Wish I Was The Moon," but who's inhabiter is more kick-ass?
Of course we know Antonia better than Tio Luca, but the few seconds we saw of Tio hunched in the corner cackling to himself, combined with the way he cured Jesus of death-by-snake-poison was enough to impress us.
Although, Antonia does have fire eyes. How can you top that?


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How Many Listeners Does Howard Stern Have?
A recent article in AdAge highlights the fact that Howard Stern's ad rates have dropped to $5,000 - $6,000 per spot - with live reads maxing out at $10,000. That's about 1/2 of what Sirius was originally asking, and back in his terrestrial days Stern was commanding a live-read upwards of around $30,000.
But that's not really the interesting part of the article, because well it's not really much of a surprise. The interesting part is the listener number data coming from Sirius.
While XM does offer some audience data from a custom Arbitron report, Scott Greenstein, president-entertainment and sports at Sirius, said Sirius has hired a third-party research company to get audience data on "certain things our advertisers would need." The third-party data, culled from the unnamed research company, shows that 58% of subscribers listen to Howard Stern during the week.
That means there's about 5 million Stern listeners according to this data. Take 4.7 million Sirius subscribers multiplied by an estimated 2 listeners per subscription, equals 9.4 million total Sirius listeners. Multiplied by 58% and you've got Stern's audience of about 5 million people.
"Given the state of terrestrial, there are a lot of shows and hosts that would like to have that [many listeners]," Mr. Greenstein said.


text:
Train exhibit opens: The San Dieguito Heritage Museum opens a new exhibit on the history of trains, which came to the Encinitas area in the 1880s. Children can make their own toy trains to take home and there will be docent-led tours, exhibits and more; noon to 4 p.m. today (and weekends through June); 450 Quail Gardens Drive, Encinitas; free; (760) 632-9711.
Mainly Mozart Spotlight Concert: Violinist Yura Lee, violist Cynthia Phelps and cellist Peter Wiley perform works by Schumann and Mozart; 2 p.m. today; St. Elizabeth Seton Church, 6628 Santa Isabel St., Carlsbad; $26; (619) 466-8742.
"Messiah" performance: The Center Chorale presents sections from all three movements of Handel's faith-based oratorio with the Festival Orchestra and soloists; 3 p.m. today; California Center for the Arts, Escondido, 340 N. Escondido Blvd., Escondido; $10-$25; (800) 988-4253.
Violinist Caroline Goulding: Fallbrook Music Society concert features Bach's Sonata in E Major, Kreisler's "La Gitana," Corigliani's "The Red Violin Caprices" and Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances; 3 p.m. today; Bob Burton center, Fallbrook High School, 2400 S. Stage Coach Lane, Fallbrook; $38, adults; $10, students with ID; (760) 451-8644.
A Duo of Blues Duos: New Village Arts presents this double-bill featuring two local blues duos: Rick Holmstrom & the Rick Holmstrom Band and Nathan James and the Rhythm Scratchers; 8 p.m. today; 2787 State St., Carlsbad; $25; (760) 433-3245.
Steve Earle: Country/rock; 8 p.m. today; Belly Up Tavern, 143 S. Cedros Ave., Solana Beach; $32-$34; bellyup.com or (858) 481-8140.
"King Lear" reading: North Coast Repertory Theatre presents a reading of William Shakespeare's tragedy about a foolish king whose vanity is his undoing; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday; North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987D Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach; $25, general; $22, seniors, students, military; (858) 481-1055, northcoastrep.org.
Daniel Lee and Yu Ju Jung Recital: The husband-and-wife duo from South Korea perform works for flute and piano by Mozart, Borne, Bach and Quantz at this lunchtime concert; noon Wednesday; Encinitas Library, 540 Cornish Drive, Encinitas; free; (760) 633-2746.
"Pride and Prejudice" Film Series kicks off: The Carlsbad Library Film Series presents a three-week series of films adapted from and inspired by Jane Austen's 1813 romance novel; the Oscar-nominated 2005 film "Pride and Prejudice," starring Keira Knightley, screens at 6 p.m. Wednesday; the 2004 Bollywood adaptation "Bride and Prejudice," at 6 p.m. Jan. 23; and the 2001 comedy loosely based on the novel "Bridget Jones' Diary," 6 p.m. Jan. 30; Schulman Auditorium, 1775 Dove Lane, Carlsbad; free; (760) 434-2920.
"Leading Ladies" opens: Moonlight Stage Productions presents Ken Ludwig's farce about two down-on-their-luck British actors who dress in drag in hopes of claiming a fortune left to two young ladies; opens Thursday and runs through Feb. 3; showtimes, 8 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays; Avo Playhouse, 303 Main St., Vista; $30, adults; $28, seniors, students and military; $22, ages 12 and younger; (760) 724-2110, moonlightstage.com.


text:
10 Dumb Things to Avoid Doing With Your Smartphone
Colin McEnroe
- Overview
- Dropping $400 Worth of Smartphone Into the Toilet
- Sending Pictures of Your Junk
- Cheating at Foursquare
- Being a Douche with your Phone
- The Geico Syndrome
- Typing in Stupid Abbreviations like EOM
- Texting that Which Should be Spoken
- Mafia Wars
- Secretly Recording the Making of Sexy-Time
- Adding to Your Permanent Record
More Guy Wisdom Lists
Sending Pictures of Your Junk
Has this ever worked? If it hasn't worked for legendary NFL quarterbacks, for whom could it possibly work? And if it did work, isn't it axiomatic that the woman for whom this is an icebreaker is nuts, and would end up killing you with hand-sharpened chopsticks in a darkened hallway?
Sign up for our FREE Daily Dose newsletter for the best fitness, health, sex, and nutrition tips delivered to your inbox daily.


text:
Lewisville (TX) Assisted Living Facilities & Senior Lifestyle Options
Families often worry about parents as they age. Seniors living on their own may not be the best option, especially when they need some assistance for their day-to-day activities. Understandably, family members are busy with work and families of their own, so caring for an aging parent in their home may be extremely difficult. When Seniors find themselves in this situation, and especially in the Dallas-Lewisville, Texas, area, they often choose a Lewisville assisted living community as a viable option.... Read more
Results are sorted by listings with images, then distance from the center of the Lewisville. To search for just one type of care (like assisted living or nursing homes) enter Lewisville or your zip into the search bar and then use the tabs to limit to a single type of care. See all Texas senior living options.
800 College Pkwy, Lewisville, TX 75067
965 N Garden Ridge Blvd, Lewisville, TX 75077-2800
2215 Rockbrook Dr, Lewisville, TX 75067
6051 Morriss Rd, Flower Mound, TX 75028
400 Highland Dr, Lewisville, TX 75067
3500 Old Denton Road, Carrollton, TX 75007
1825 Arbor Creek Dr, Carrollton, TX 75010
8707 Valley Ranch Parkway West, Irving, TX 75063
8855 West Valley Ranch Parkway, Irving, TX 75063
1295 Kinwest Parkway, Irving, TX 75063
3000 Midway Rd, Plano, TX 75093-6121
2525 Lillian Miller Pkwy, Denton, TX 76210
5521 Village Creek Dr, Plano, TX 75093
3975 William D Tate Ave, Grapevine, TX 76051
1357 Bernard St, Denton, TX 76201-7129
3800 Central Dr, Bedford, TX 76021
2525 Hinkle Dr, Denton, TX 76201-0741
429 Frankie Lane, Lewisville, TX 75057
1101 Breezewood Dr, Lewisville, TX 75067
1724 Milestone Ridge, Lewisville, TX 75067
1761 Cliffrose Ln, Lewisville, TX 75067
2024 Aspen Dr, Lewisville, TX 75077
2204 Peachtree Ln, Lewisville, TX 75067
3201 Karnes Rd, Flower Mound, TX 75022
110 Barnett Blvd, Highland Village, TX 75077
1201 E Sandy Lake Rd, Coppell, TX 75019
405 Northlake Drive, Carrollton, GA 30117
403 Northlake Drive., Carrollton, GA 30117
1800 King Arthur Blvd, Carrollton, TX 75010
3440 Corinth Pkwy, No. 100, Corinth, TX 76208
5100 Arbor Glen Rd, The Colony, TX 75056
6601 Raintree Place, Flower Mound, TX 75022
1405 Val Verde Ct, Denton, TX 76210
3901 Montecito Dr, Denton, TX 76210
13505 Webb Chapel Rd, Farmers Branch, TX 75234
State licensed: This Lewisville organization was licensed when last updated. Check your local ombudsmen for the current status. All information on SeniorLiving.Org is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.


text:
Star Wars: Children of Tomorrow is a play-by-post Star Wars role play taking place in 304 QR and classified as being post-post-Legacy era. We are an intermediate-to-advanced role play with an original, exciting plot, active staff and much more to offer. Founded on April 28th, 2011, we are still going strong with activity!
Star Wars: Children of Tomorrow is a post canon Star Wars role play that is focused on user generated plots and set in 376.5 ABY. Our factions include the Jedi and Sith Orders, the Imperial Knights, Independents, and the Anti-Force Guild.
Open and going strong for over three years, we offer a friendly, active role playing environment with lots of character and plotting opportunities. Wanna play a Jedi? Go for it. How about a smuggler with a ship that can make .5 past lightspeed? Awesome. The galaxy is yours to be part of!
Important Announcement
I'm going to be closing off certain sections from getting posts, since once JCink moves the new posts over, any replies to any threads on this board won't be moved over onto the new board. Once things are set up on that board, I will continue to finish making things on this board so that no one can post anything, only those with accounts can post, and no one will be able to register any accounts on this board. If you have any questions, please send me an e-mail at email@example.com. Thanks for being patient with us!
Star Wars: Children of Tomorrow is inspired by George Lucas's STAR WARS trilogy. The plot is developed by Ally. Heidi is the creator of the skin. The contents of this game are not to be reproduced in any way without consent from the creators. All characters belong to their individual creators, as does any written material posted in the game. Some Star Wars site macros made by Ava.


text:
Joshua A. Phipps, 26. of Eastpoint, passed away Friday, Feb. 8, 2013 in
He was born Feb. 19, 1986 in
He is preceded in death by his grandfathers, J.M. Farmer, Buddy Adkison, and Floyd Phipps.
Joshua is survived by his parents, Rex Alan and Sabrina Farmer Phipps of Eastpoint; a sister, Kimberly Hollenbeck of Sumatra; and grandmothers Margaret Farmer, of Sumatra, Sylvia Adkison of Eastpoint, and Janet Phipps of Galax,
Funeral services will be held 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 15 at the Trinity Episcopal Church of Apalachicola with Father Joe Knight officiating. The family will receive friends from 3 p.m.. until service time at the church.
In lieu of flowers the family is requesting memorial donations be given to Children's Organ Transplant Association; go to www.cota.org to make contributions online. Condolences may be submitted or viewed at www.southerlandfamily.com.


text:
Leland Spelman - Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage
Leland "Lee" Spelman
Sales Associate
Address: 36 Tiburon Blvd Mill Valley, CA 94941
Contact: Office: 415.388.5060 Email: email@example.com
Languages: English
- Leland specializes in brokering properties in San Francisco and Marin County. He has sold investment properties throughout California. He is designated as both a residential and commercial agent.
- During the past 15 years Leland has been a top performer for Coldwell Banker. During the 1st Quarter of 2005 he was a member of the top 100 agents in Northern California. Leland has sold over 350 homes and investment properties.
- Many sales have required specialized knowledge and marketing expertise. Leland has represented trusts, estates, foundations, conservators, financial institutions, public administrators, and even the federal government in the sale of real property.
- During the 1980's he operated his own NASD firm that specialized in raising capital for apartment investments.
- Leland has an extensive background in investment sales, including apartment buildings, hotels, office buildings and single tenant properties.
- In the mid 1980's he had his own NASD firm that specialized in raising capital for apartment buildings. In association with his partners he aquired, managed and sold over 500 apartment units in the Bay Area.
- Prior to entering the real estate industry in 1984, Leland worked as an internal marketing and technology consultant to Levi Strauss, Hewlett Packard and Bank of America.
- He also served as Director of Marketing for a network technology company. Leland utilizes this extensive buisiness and marketing background to assist his clients in making "The Right Move". You can trust his 30 years of experience in business decision making.
- Leland was born in San Francisco and raised in Mill Valley, CA
- He attended Tamalpais High School and graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Economics.


text: Radio talk show host and author Laura Flanders, has written a new book (just in time for Women's History Month) in which she charges that women are being appointed to high-level positions in the White House in order to provide cover for the administration's true agenda. Flanders says that the mainstream media has failed to find an interesting story- covering National Security advisor Condoleeza Rice's piano playing and make-up while ignoring her controversial role as a Chevron oil executive. EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman is a supposed "moderate", while having a questionable record protecting the health of people living near Ground Zero. Flanders details the stories of many women in the Bush White House whose backgrounds are either at odds with the aims of the Bush administration or have conflicts of interest with their roles in government. (publisher: Verso)comments powered by Disqus


text:
Aleph Number:
(C) 2003 Duke University. All rights reserved.
Collection is open for research.
Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection.
All or portions of this collection may be housed off-site in Duke University's Library Service Center. The library may require up to 48 hours to retrieve these materials for research use.
Please contact Research Services staff before visiting the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library to use this collection.
The copyright interests in this collection have not been transferred to Duke University. For more information, consult the copyright section of the Regulations and Procedures of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
[Identification of item], Jody Jones Hunter Collection of Works by William Styron, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
The Jody Jones Hunter Collection of Works by William Styron was received as a gift by the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library in 1998, 2001 and 2008.
Preliminary processing by Don Sechler
Completed December 17, 1998
Additions minimally processed by Elizabeth Arnold
Updated June 11, 2003
Encoded by Don Sechler; Elizabeth Arnold
Finding aid updated to include unprocessed 2008 accessions by Alice Poffinberger, August 2, 2009.
Restriction on two letters in 2008 accession have been lifted.
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.
This collection is unprocessed: materials may not have been ordered and described beyond their original condition.
Hunter is a collector of works by certain southern authors taught by William Blackburn. William Styron is an award-winning author of American literature, including such works as
The Jody Jones Hunter Collection of Works by William Styron includes first editions, limited editions, translations, and other editions, many of them autographed or inscribed, of the works of William Styron, along with published articles, correspondence, manuscripts, and related materials. The correspondence is chiefly letters written by Styron to Stuart Wright, the owner of Palaemon Press in Winston-Salem, N.C. and publisher of several limited editions of Styron's work. Also included with the collection is a carbon typescript of
The addition (Accession 2001-0056) consists largely of books (mostly first editions, some signed or inscribed) and printed material written by or about Styron, or containing his contributions (1951-2001). Also includes editions of
Addition (08-081)(5 items, .1 lin. ft.; undated) comprises a signed black-and-white photograph, and four pages of Styron's writing (two sheets are signed).
Addition (08-325)(4 items, .3 lin. ft.; dated 1982-1995 and undated) comprises two items of correspondence, a signed photograph, and an undated screenplay, SET THIS HOUSE ON FIRE.
These are searchable subject entries for this collection. Performing a search on these subjects in the Duke University Libraries online catalog will bring up other related research materials.
First editions, translations, and other editions, many signed and inscribed, of Styron's first novel.
1st edition, presentation copy.
1st edition - Tipped in Letter - no dust jacket.
1st edition, signed.
French edition.
French edition.
Signed by Styron and Yates.
Slipcased - letter 'J' of 26 lettered copies.
#3 of 250 copies signed by Styron.
Trade edition.
First editions, first published versions, translations, and other editions of Styron's novella.
Signed by Styron; "The Long March" on page 221.
"The Long March" on page 221.
British edition.
Pages uncut.
Swedish edition.
1st edition, trial dust jacket.
1st edition, signed.
1st edition, signed.
1st British edition, signed.
1st British edition.
Excerpt from
French paperback edition.
Reprint of
First editions, translations, and other
editions of Styron's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Also
includes contemporary accounts of the
See also Box 14 (oversize).
1st edition; presentation copy to
#23 of 500, signed, slipcased.
Signed on tipped in leaf.
Fourth printing, signed.
1st British edition, with Pulitzer Prize wrap.
1st British edition.
Pirated edition, photo offset from the Random House edition, signed.
Pirated edition, photo offset from the Random House edition.
Brown leather.
#18 of 45 deluxe copies of 1st French edition.
2nd French edition.
Portuguese edition.
1st edition.
Text of Styron's essay "Nat Turner Revisited."
1st edition. An account of the
Responses to
Essay on
Poems inspired by
Essay on
Lengthy excerpt of
1st edition, signed.
First editions, translations, and other editions of Styron's novel. Also includes published excerpts and related materials.
Brown leather.
Advance presentation edition.
Slipcased, signed limited edition, #490 of 500.
1st trade edition.
1st British edition.
Two volumes.
1st Finnish Edition.
Portuguese edition.
Contains review of
Essay on the making of the movie "Sophie's Choice."
Excerpt from
Bound copy of essay used in promotion of
1st edition, # 73 of 250, signed, slipcased.
1st trade edition.
1st British edition.
1st French edition.
1st edition.
1st paperback edition.
1st edition.
1st large print edition.
#304 of 350 copies signed.
1st edition, signed, #47 of 200 slipcased.
Chiefly fine press editions of Styron's writings. Some trade editions of collected works are also included. See also Box 15 (oversize).
Includes "Shadrach."
Galley proofs, signed by Styron.
1st edition, letter 'R" of 26 lettered copies.
2nd edition, letter 'B' of 26 lettered copies.
2nd edition, number viii of 50 roman numeral copies.
2nd edition, number 39 of 100.
2nd edition, #53 of 100.
Letter 'O' of 26 lettered.
#84 of 200 copies.
#50 of 1000 copies.
1st edition.
Letter 'Z' of 26 copies.
#237 of 300 copies.
Signed, edition limited to 75 copies.
Letter 'L' of 26 copies.
#16 of 26 copies.
#2 of 100 copies.
#14 of 100 copies.
Published works containing writings by Styron, chiefly short nonfiction pieces, interviews, forwards and introductions, and cover "blurbs." For additional periodicals see also Clippings, Box 13 (oversize)
Blurb by Styron.
Forward by Styron.
Cloth edition.
Introduction by Styron.
1st edition, signed by Styron.
1st edition.
Blurb and introduction by Styron.
1st edition.
1st paperback edition.
Introduction by William Styron.
Introduction by Styron.
Introduction by Styron.
Blurb by Styron.
Forward by Styron.
Essay by Styron.
Published interviews, short biographical profiles, analysis, and photographs. Also includes two works by Styron's wife, the poet Rose Burgunder Styron.
Dedicated to Styron.
Interview with Styron.
Interview with Styron.
Chiefly published excerpts of novels, arranged by novel in chronological order, and short non-fiction pieces by and about Styron. See also Box 13 (oversize).
Printed from the internet in
One autographed postcard,
Chiefly letters from Styron to Wright.
Wright owned
33 1/3 rpm long playing 7" vinyl record.
Styron reads from
VHS recording of Styron speaking to
Audio cassette of Styron reading at
2 audio cassettes, read by Styron.
Home-recorded Beta cassette of a public television broadcast.
Home-recorded Beta cassette of a public
television broadcast. Styron and
Home-recorded cassette of a 1-hour documentary. 2 copies - one Beta, one VHS.
Home-recorded Beta video cassette.
2 sets of 2 cassettes each.
Styron has a cameo appearance.
Clippings and oversize periodicals,
Carbon copy, with holograph corrections, of Styron's original typescript.
Third printing, with long inscription by
Styron to reviewer
First edition;
First edition; contains many mentions of Styron.
First edition; includes Styron's
First edition; introduction by Styron.
First edition; signed by the author.
Uncorrected proof in original green wrappers.
Includes several mentions of Styron.
Includes excerpt from Styron's 1981 commencement speech at Duke.
Styron's advance reading copy of the first edition.
First edition; includes excerpt from Styron's
First edition; introduction by Styron.
First edition, signed by the photographer; includes portrait of Styron.
Review by
Accompanied by articles printed from the internet about the event.
Uncorrected proof.
Published as
First published in
One black-and-white signed photograph, and four pages of Styron's writing (two sheets are signed).
Two items of correspondence in one folder. Also includes a photograph and an undated screenplay, SET THIS HOUSE ON FIRE (in one box).


text:
Real Housewives of New York
Heather Thomson Worries That Ramona is "Spreading Her Crazy" to Aviva on RHONY
After last night's The Real Housewives of New York (Season 5, Episode 12: "All How You Spin It"), we were worried that new castmates Heather Thomson and Aviva Drescher wouldn't recover from their fight about manners at the townhouse party. They are definitely still friends. However, Heather is still wondering why Aviva had a "momentary lapse of sanity."
Aviva seemed to be defending Ramona Singer at the party quite emphatically, which caused Heather to question Aviva's judgment and motives. "Is she paying you?" Heather asked. While Aviva tweeted a cryptic message suggesting that RHONY producers had encouraged her to "pick a side," Heather writes in her Bravo blog that she still doesn't get it.
"Honestly hasn't everyone admitted Ramona can be crazy?" she writes. "She really is just too much! I only hope she's not contagious and is spreading her crazy to my friends!?"
Probably not, considering Aviva's extensive tweets about regretting her stance at the time. Nevertheless, it has been fun watching Heather's early distaste for Ramona spread amongst all the new castmates, including Carole Radziwill. Will the divide grow even more once they travel to St. Bart's?
The Real Housewives of New York airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Bravo.
Source: Bravo
Molly Friedman is an editor at Wetpaint Entertainment. Follow her on Twitter @MollyFriedman.
Get all the latest RHONY news! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @RHONYWetpaint.