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Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga) (original 2008; edition 2010)
by Stephenie Meyer
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Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (2008)
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This series was my very Favorite PNR Romance
Found this video Last night ;-) Your Welcome
Love The Way You Lie
The only thing I don't love about Breaking Dawn is that it means the Saga is over. I love the challenges, Bella's love for her child and Edward, and how Jacob finally fits into the picture without it hurting anyone. I was also pleased to see what Bella brought to her new life. Awesome!
Not as good as the first
When you can live forever, what do you live for?
This question punctuated by a mood setting beat flashes through the screen in the trailer for the movie Twilight.
As Twilight begins, for Edward, the 108 years old vampire, who has been 17 for "a while", the answer is attending high school.
Last September as I dragged myself from class to class following my 12 year old busy schedule against a flow of other similarly stressed parents, I pondered this bizarre choice. Why would a 108 year old man, even one who looks like a Greed god, and his gorgeous siblings want to spend their days in high school?
It is not to make friends: The Cullens keep to themselves and do not mix with humans. And wouldn't college be more appropriate if they wanted to study?
The only reason seems to be that the author needs Edward in High School so he meets Bella.
This is only one of many times in the series where nonsensical things happen just because the author needs the plot to go there.
For instance, going back to the trailer: we are shown images of the fight scene in the dance studio. This is "the" action scene in a book lacking in action. And yet, can anyone explain to me how and why Bella makes it there alone?
There are more examples:
In New Moon, Edward leaving Bella is but an obvious device to keep them separated and justify another book.
The phone call where Edward thinks Jacob is talking about Bella's funeral is contrived.
By the end of New Moon the Volturi tell Edward Bella has to become a vampire or they will kill her. But Edward still refuses for another book. How is he planning to fool the Volturi is never explained.
In Eclipse, there is a snow storm in summer time that comes out of nowhere to justify Jacob getting close to Bella, and Edward staying with them to stage the battle scene.
The plot of the three books can be summarized as follows: Girl meets boy. Boy is a vampire. Girl wants to be a vampire too so they can be together. Boy refuses because he thinks vampires are killers. Boy finally agrees to make her a vampire.
The three first books deal with the romance, the unfulfilled love and the question of whether Edward and Bella will end together or not.
Breaking Dawn is different. By the end of Eclipse Bella has chosen Edward and Edward has agreed to make her a vampire. As BD starts they get married.
For many fans BD doesn't work because once they are married the question is answered and the romantic tension disappears.
That is not my main criticism of BD.
There are many reasons why BD doesn't work for me. Plot inconsistencies, scientific impossibilities, terrible pacing to name a few.
For instance:
Edward didn't want Bella to become a vampire because vampires are killers. Werewolves exist to kill them for that very reason: to protect the humans. But as soon as Bella becomes a vampire, vampires are not evil anymore. Of course the Cullens don't kill humans. Yet when the Cullens need help from other vampires, they invite them over, and neither Bella nor her new family seem to mind too much that they are killing people. The werewolves don't do anything either.
Emmett at the beginning of New Moon goes feral upon smelling Bella's blood. This is the reason that prompts Edward to leave her. He wants to protect her from the potential threat vampires pose. At this point in the story we are lead to believe vampires are evil and must fight their instincts constantly or they would kill.
Yet when Bella becomes a vampire, the struggle is minimized to the point of non existence. Accepting the premise that vampires are always only a step away from going into a killing spree would challenge the "perfect happy world" Ms. Meyer wants to create.
But if vampires are not evil, Edward's reluctance to make Bella a vampire the one and only reason they didn't end up together in book one disappears.
The Cullens break human rules constantly. I guess to be otherworldly beautiful gives them the right. For instance, Edward gets Bella admitted into Dartmouth College and no one seemed to think this is totally unethical.
I agree with other reviewers that the conflict with the Volturi is anticlimactic and unrealistic.
There is no doubt that the Volturi are killers. We have seen this in the gruesome scene at the end of [b:New Moon|49041|New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2)|Stephenie Meyer|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/414jgcy2FAL._SL75_.jpg|3203964] where innocent Italian tourists are killed. They even kill vampires (innocent or otherwise). They kill one of the Cullen's friends in BD. Wouldn't the Cullens want to put an end to their power?
Apparently not. As long as they don't challenge their family directly, they do nothing.
Ms. Meyer'es excuse for avoiding the battle is that in a battle some of the "good" vampires would have died and she wanted a happy ending. And so the Volturi leave and nothing is solved.
Another inconsistency: According to the Volturi's rules Charlie couldn't live as he knows part of the truth about vampires.
Now for the baby and the scientific explanations: they are ridiculous.
Dead is dead. Vampires may have poison, but to make a baby you need a spermatozoid and that is quite a different matter.
Simplifying: a poison is a chemical compound with a complexity of one. A spermatozoid has a complexity of millions.
To compare a poison with a spermatozoid is like comparing a word with a book. They are both made of letters (atoms the former). But the book is a little more complex.
Besides, the spermatozoid is alive. Extending the analogy: a book is not only a group of words, but a group of words that tells a story.
Again spermatozoids are alive. Vampires are not. Ergo, vampires cannot make spermatozoids.
As for the number of chromosomes. Vampires, we are told, have 25 pairs of chromosomes, Humans 23. Trust me on this or look it up in your 10th grade Biology book. If the egg has 23 chromosomes and the spermatozoid 25, the resulting cells do not have 24. Some cells will have 23, others 24, others 25. The cells will not be viable.
I am not being picky. I love Science Fiction. I am aware that the science in SF books is false. Yet it must make a little bit of sense.
Angel, the vampire from the series Angel, also has a son with another vampire. In the imaginary world created in this series, vampires cannot have children either. But at least they don't try to explain it, it is still impossible, they say, an anomaly. And because they don't try to explain it, I suspend my disbelief.
A recent book about vampires that uses science really well is Peeps by Scott Westerfeld.
What bothers me the most about BD is the fact that by becoming a vampire Bella becomes beautiful and that solve all her problems.
For three books she has whined that she is ugly and thus doubts that Edward loves her. But now that she is a vampire and beautiful, she doesn't doubt anymore. I found the implied message that self-confidence is tied to good looks disturbing.
As a reader I can't deny the Twilight series is engaging in the sense that you can't put it down. The author manages to keep you reading with a suspense "a la Hitchcock". Hitchcock is called the "Master of Suspense" because he builds his movies with scenes that keep you thinking something terrible is going to happen. It is only when the movie is over that you realized that nothing much has really happened, and that, most of the times, the "thing" that kept the action going was an excuse.
Ms. Meyer similarly creates suspense out of nothing. Judging by her millions of fans she does it quite successfully.
As a writer, I found the Twilight series seriously lacking. The characters are shallow, the plot almost non-existent, the pacing sluggish, and the storyline full of contradictions.
Now that the series is over and I can look at the story with perspective what strike me most is the futility of it all. Bella never doubts she wants to be a vampire. I am not surprised. As a human she didn't have much of a life. But it is not only Bella who had no life. Edward had none either. For an immortal he has had a pretty uneventful past. For one who is going to live forever he seems to have no plans for the future.
As for the question: When you can live forever, what do you live for? For Bella in BD the answer is simple: Sex. Sex, it seems, is all she ever wanted.
Seriously, what does this family of super talented vampires live for?
There is no mysterious higher purpose as the haunting music suggests in the trailer. Except for Carlile that works as a doctor, the rest of the Cullens do nothing but enjoy their own shallow existence.
The world Twilight conjures is the ultimate teenage fantasy. A world of beautiful people, eternally young, that do not need jobs or have to worry about money, or disease.
They live in a happy present without worries of a future that will be more of the same.
Teenagers are narcissistic current research indicates (something to do with their front lobe not been totally developed) and thus, because their emphatic abilities are impaired, they have an excuse to be so self-centered. What is the vampires excuse?
Yes, I know, most of us humans don't do much for others either. But we don't have superpowers and as Spiderman puts it "With big power, comes big responsibility."
The fact that I am taking wisdom from a comic book hero, underlines my problem with the Twilight characters: Bella and the Cullens are so narcissistic that even comic superheroes seem deep by comparison.
Don't get me wrong. I am all for romantic love and happy endings (Listening to Jacques Brel declaiming Ne me quitte Pas/Don't leave me in YouTube gives me goose bumps) but Bella and Edward are too self-involved to engage my sympathy.
I may be old-fashioned but I like my heroes/heroines a little more . . . heroic?
My favorite of the four books, I liked the end.
And so the pabulum slips down, spoonful by spoonful, with every now and then a neat idea, an unspoken hint of untold perversity, an almost subliminal flash of something nasty.
Over 754 pages, the answers come almost too easily, but not quickly.
I hope no one takes this review to offense, so here I go.
I thought this book was completely insane, rambling, and irrelevant. Period. So much of this book was just fluff and not enough action like how I think a Vampire book should be about. Sure, the book has it's good points like Jacob finally coming to terms with his power of an Alpha wolf and Bella finally being transformed into a beautiful vampire. Then again there are so many things t hat don't make sense and leave me wanting more, but not in the good way because I know that's the end of that.
Here are my list of problems:
1) Bella's baby is a super genius with the power to talk through thoughts and images. Now that's a pretty cool power if you ask me, but it has an adult mind. Not to mention that it has an earsplitting name which I don't feel like typing out. This very baby is also the center of Jacob's new infatuation. Please, ignore that he was completely and utterly obsessively in love with Bella for the first three books! Now he's got an infant to be romantically involved with! Just….ew.
2) Bella is also super perfect as a vampire. Even as a human, Bella defied logic as a person with real emotions or tendencies. I mean, she goes out with a vampire who wants to drink her blood like heroine, hangs out with potentially dangerous werewolves, marries a vampire, gets pregnant, and now she gets turned into one. As a vampire she can suppress her own cravings and has developed powers.
3) The fight scene was a let down! I mean, there was no fighting!
So, those are my thoughts. Feel free to object or argue
Certain elements of BREAKING DAWN are perplexing, even off-putting --- particularly the scenes of sex, pregnancy and childbirth.
But it's nearly impossible to please everyone --- especially when so much of the series' drama has relied on the tension of Bella's choice between two very different but desirable lovers. Readers who are able, eventually, to gain some perspective will find much to redeem BREAKING DAWN, particularly its new insights into Jacob's inner life as well as its neat resolution to several of the series' pressing conflicts and its realistic (or at least as realistic as a vampire romance can get) portrayal of the complexities and joys of married life.
References to this work on external resources.
Wikipedia in English (3)
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 031606792X, Hardcover)Great love stories thrive on sacrifice. Throughout The Twilight Saga (Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse), Stephenie Meyer has emulated great love stories--Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights--with the fated, yet perpetually doomed love of Bella (the human girl) and Edward (the vampire who feeds on animals instead of humans). In Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final installment in the series, Bella's story plays out in some unexpected ways. The ongoing conflicts that made this series so compelling--a human girl in love with a vampire, a werewolf in love with a human girl, the generations-long feud between werewolves and vampires--resolve pretty quickly, apparently so that Meyer could focus on Bella's latest opportunity for self-sacrifice: giving her life for someone she loves even more than Edward. How close she comes to actually making that sacrifice is questionable, which is a big shift from the earlier books. Even though you knew Bella would make it through somehow, the threats to her life, and to her relationship with Edward, had previously always felt real. It's as if Meyer was afraid of hurting her characters too much, which is unfortunate, because the pain Bella suffered at losing Edward in New Moon, and the pain Jacob suffered at losing Bella again and again, are the fire and the heart that drive the whole series. Diehard fans will stick with Bella, Edward, and Jacob for as many twists and turns as possible, but after most of the characters get what they want with little sacrifice, some readers may have a harder time caring what happens next. (Ages 12 and up) --Heidi Broadhead
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 12 Mar 2015 18:22:17 -0400)
In the fourth and final book in the #1 bestselling teen vampire Twilight Saga, questions will be answered and the fate of Bella and Edward will be revealed.
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State of the Union
essay contest held
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The deadline for submitting entries is Jan. 8.MORE IN This Just InWATERBURY CENTER The Harwood golf team closed out the regular season Wednesday on its home... Full StoryCOLCHESTER Green Mountain Valley School standout Ellie Urdang scored with nine seconds left in... Full Story
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Anybody using the G15 VF ?
Started Nov 16, 2012 | Discussions thread
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André BARELIER • Veteran Member • Posts: 7,101
Anybody using the G15 VF ?
Not to start a new endless debate VF vs LCD, but I'd like to know if some G15 owners use the VF?
If so, care to share your impressions? I mean: is it usable? (I know it's painfully small, inaccurate, with no info at all). But is it usable?
I have a P7100, and use the VF every time I don't need to check the settings on the LCD. For exemple, when shooting people in good light, like in this one:
For this kind of picture, I like to use the VF.
Is it possible with the G15?
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Roy D. Kamphausen is Senior Vice President for Research and Director of the Washington, D.C., office at NBR. Mr. Kamphausen has provided senior leadership to NBR for years, and previously served as Senior Advisor and Senior Vice President for Political and Security Affairs.
Prior to joining NBR, Mr. Kamphausen served as a U.S. Army officer. As a China Foreign Area Officer, his career included assignments as China policy director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, China strategist for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and a military attache at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.
Mr. Kamphausen's areas of professional expertise include China's People's Liberation Army (PLA), U.S.-China defense relations, East Asian security issues and innovation and intellectual property protection policy. He has presented lectures on these topics throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe.
Mr. Kamphausen's recent NBR publications include the NBR Special Report "Innovate in India: Global Perspectives on the Continuing Evolution of India's IP Policy" (2015) and the last eight volumes from the annual PLA Conference, published by the U.S. Army War College, including the recent volume The Chinese People's Liberation Army in 2025 (co-edited with David Lai) and Assessing the People's Liberation Army in the Hu Jintao Era(co-edited with David Lai and Travis Tanner). He also authored the chapter "China's Land Forces: New Priorities and Capabilities" in Strategic Asia 2012-13: China's Military Challenge (2012). Mr. Kamphausen was deputy director of the IP Commission in 2012 and an author of the Commission's Report on the Theft of American Intellectual Property.
Mr. Kamphausen is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and a regular lecturer at leading U.S. military institutions, including the United States Military Academy (West Point), the National Defense University, and the U.S. Army War College. He also serves as a Senior Advisor on East Asia for the University of Connecticut Office of Global Affairs. Mr. Kamphausen testifies regularly before Congress and consults with the U.S. Department of Defense. His analysis appears in major international media, including Foreign Policy, Financial Times, New York Times, National Public Radio, Newsweek, and others.
Mr. Kamphausen holds a BA in Political Science from Wheaton College and an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University. He studied Chinese at both the Defense Language Institute and Beijing's Capital Normal University. He is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the Asia Society, and the Council for Security and Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific. He is married to Arminda and they have three children—Abigail, Hudson, and Delaney.
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The RISEcx management team brings decades of experience to this young company. We are comprised of innovative, creative entrepreneurs and industry experts.
Our innovative technology continues to evolve and we work tirelessly to help our customers succeed.
Our background has given us a unique perspective on how to help non-technical people use our technology to move existing (flat, un-used, abandoned, typical) media and presentations into amazing content experiences (interactive, engaging, on-brand, highly consumable).
We are focused on helping our customers deliver better content, communication and collaboration to their audience.
Our mentor team of advisors, includes (present and former) senior leaders at Microsoft, Adobe, Salesforce and several other marketing and sales leaders who are employed within the industries we support.
We have gained the interest of analysts, who see what we are doing as the best representation of buyer engagement and enablement.
We see a world where technology enables people to do things the way they would naturally but with more speed and efficiency. We want that experience to be enjoyable and we also want it to add real value in life-enhancing situations. What we have developed for businesses to use in sales enablement is also hugely valuable in the world of education where the same philosophy applies.
We are committed to fixing education through supporting programs that make a difference. Currently, we are partnering with schools and foundations as an education technology partner. Our education philanthropy efforts are managed by Power2Work.org, (P2W) a 501c3 non-profit.
Through our technology, teachers easily administer and deliver personalized learning to their class. Students participate in a collaborative multi-school project environment simulating international trade and the global supply chain processes.
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How to find us
Good Samaritan Society - Superior
Good Samaritan Society – Superior
(402) 879-4791
Good Samaritan Society –
(402) 879-3099
Good Samaritan Society –
(402) 879-4794
Good Samaritan Society - Superior
Good Samaritan Society – Superior
(402) 879-4791
Good Samaritan Society –
(402) 879-3099
Good Samaritan Society –
(402) 879-4794
(Superior, Nebraska) – When Good Samaritan Society – Superior started its Food for Families program five years ago, the goal was to collect some nonperishable food items and help the community's food pantry stock its shelves for the year.
"This was just something we thought we could do to meet a need in the community," says Matthew Blum, administrator. Since then, Good Samaritan Society – Superior staff members have collected food and packed food boxes for the food pantry every year.
This year, after applying for a social accountability grant, the location expanded its efforts and collected money and more than 150 pounds of nonperishable food during the month of April.
Staff, families and visitors contributed canned and other nonperishable food items to the drop boxes in the front entrance area and break room.
On Tuesdays and Fridays in April, staff members could wear jeans if they donated a can of food or another item. And on April 15, center leadership met at the food pantry to pack food boxes for area residents.
This opportunity allowed staff members to learn more about Community Action Partnership of Mid-Nebraska, which assists with the food pantry and provides nutrition support and programs to Superior and surrounding areas.
Matthew says that giving back to the community is a great way to help the people of Superior and carry out the Good Samaritan Society mission.
"Community involvement is important to our center because we have been in business in Superior for over 50 years," Matthew says. "We have seen family members of residents become residents, and we've seen others become staff members. Some even move back to become residents."
Click here to learn more about social accountability at the Good Samaritan Society.
Choosing a post-acute rehabilitation services center for yourself or someone you love is a big decision, but considering these five things can help you make the right choice.
1. What is post-acute rehabilitation?
Post-acute rehab — sometimes known as rehab therapy, sub-acute or transitional care — is designed for individuals of all ages who are rehabilitating and recovering following hospitalization from elective surgery, serious injury or illness.
Post-acute rehab offers a 24-hour multi-disciplinary focus emphasizing body, mind and soul to help people recover and return home.
(Superior, Neb.) – A warm smile when you enter the room. A solid voice for you when you feel you have none. A gentle hug when you need it. An encouraging word when you are finding your way.
What small act of kindness from someone made a difference to you today? When can you remember extending that kindness to others?
For us at the Good Samaritan Society, we pray these acts happen every day with people we encounter. To help us intentionally create, recognize and gratefully receive kindness, we've started an approach to daily life called The Good Samaritan Society Way.
It's a new way of sharing God's love in word and deed, but it's also an extension of what we've always done. And it's now an invitation for you to help us create places filled with meaning, hope and love.
In this approach, we emphasize eight traits—compassion, joy, acceptance, love, honesty, perseverance, humility and courage—that we challenge ourselves to live out in our interactions with those we serve, and with each other.
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: Ruby hack:
Pokémon Derpizard
View Single Post
April 7th, 2013 (5:41 AM). Edited April 7th, 2013 by karatekid552.
What happens if I push it?....
Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Do you really want to know? Really?
Gender: Male
Nature: Bold
Posts: 1,766
Originally Posted by
Um...wow. This is just ridiculous! The fact that the pictures alone put a wide grin on my face is already a wonderful sign of things to come upon actually playing the hack. Congrats on this truly humorous release!
I can't wait to see how Derpizard: Origins (or whatever you may call it) plays out.
Haha, thanks. That is what I was going for!
Originally Posted by
Hahaha i will try this, but i don't know if it will make me to play until the end
Haha, me and Clacla actually debated putting a warning on the first post to anyone who is not particularly "stable".:D I myself have trouble playing it due to the lack of, well, anything but Derpizards. However, I have come to realize that this hack puts forth several new challenges that many hacks might not:
1) You will never know what pokemon you are fighting in a battle (Unless you cheat and look at the RSE guide:/). This means it will be tough to attack them and hit their weak points.
2) Having a weak starter means you HAVE to train wild Pokemon, but, like the first one, you won't know what you are battling, and, ergo, catching:p, so have fun finding the right ones!
3) You won't be able to tell the difference between people outside of battles and therefore, you will be forced to talk to everyone to figure out who they are.
4) The sheer redundancy might drive you mad:p.
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Rockland Walk by davepulsWatch
©2013-2016 davepuls
A new oil pastel painting! This is from a walk at Rockland, Norfolk, on Boxing Day 2012. 12x9 inches, Neopastels on Sennelier 340gsm oil pastel card (which I got for Christmas!)
Please let me know what you think!
Please let me know what you think!
Good work!I really like it ^^
It's a beautiful paint. Reminds me a place that saw in a photo.
verry classic
Nicely done. Strangely enough, it gives off a warm feeling.
really nice
Very colourful.
Lovely work c:


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LIVE BLOG: Election 2014 (From This Is Wiltshire)
LIVE BLOG: Election 2014
Enable automatic updates every 30 seconds? YES NO
- Conservatives increase their majority control of Swindon Council
- Tories gain one seat to keep control. Majority now stands at two seats.
- The make up of Swindon Council now stands as - Conservatives 30 seats, Labour 23 seats, Lib Deam four seats.
- UKIP are the talking point of the night as they come second in a number of wards.
Comments are closed on this article.


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Does anyone know how to use BRR weights in Lumley's survey package for estimating variance if your dataset already has BRR weights it in?
I am working with PISA data, and they already include 80 BRR replicates in their dataset. How can I get as.svrepdesign to use these, instead of trying to create its own? I tried the following and got the subsequent error:
dstrat <- svydesign(id=~uniqueID,strata=~strataVar, weights=~studentWeight,
data=data, nest=TRUE)
dstrat <- as.svrepdesign(dstrat, type="BRR")
Error in brrweights(design$strata[, 1], design$cluster[, 1], ...,
fay.rho = fay.rho, : Can't split with odd numbers of PSUs in a stratum
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.


text: Stephen Price, a reporter from the Tallahassee Democrat, tells Keith Olbermann about being kicked out of a John McCain event. Price was told only national press were allowed -- but none of the other local reporters weren't asked to leave. "The fact that I'm black was the only obvious reason," Price concludes. Watch:


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Create ringtones on Audiko.net! Here you can download a free Uh Huh Her ringtones for your iPhone or mobile. Scope out your favorite episodes from your favorite thing - Not A Love Song, Human Nature, I See Red, or any other track. Then download the prepared Uh Huh Her ringtones to your cell phone, and enjoy Female Vocalists music by Uh Huh Her every time your phone rings. If you prefer Female Vocalists or maybe Indie Pop and American music, then you will probably like The Murmurs, Alex Cantu, or Peaches as well. For all who want a free Uh Huh Her ringtone, we also recommend listening to Electro Pop, Indie Rock, and Alternative. Here you can get your track piece both in the MP3 and m4a formats, played by both mobile phones and iPhones. Just select a track, and choose free Uh Huh Her ringtones download option.
Download Uh Huh Her Ringtones
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|Common Reaction
|Wait Another Day
|Not A Love Song
|Same High
|Another Case
|Say So
Uh Huh Her
19 Apr 2011
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Uh Huh Her
Uh Huh Her


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My 24 u/s today showed a white spot on baby's heart. Did your babies with downs have this?
Does white spot on baby's heart mean DS?
Comments (5)
What you are probably talking about is an echogenic interacardiac focus. It does not necessarily mean DS. This shows up on babies with typical chromosomes as well, and is such a soft marker. My son had one, but he also had several other markers. Have you had bloodwork done? If so, did they give you your odds? There are some babies with DS who had no markers, and some babies without DS who had several. Since the bloodwork and u/s are only screening tools, the uncertainty can be difficult.
Like MommaB said, it's probably the echogenic interacardiac focus (EIF) which is sometimes called a "bright spot" (which is why you are remembering it as white spot). It is such a weak marker that some doctors don't even count it as a marker. My baby did not have it - instead she had a much stronger marker for DS, a hole in the middle of her heart called an AVSD - the EIF is worlds away from that. Two of my sisters had babies with EIFS, neither with DS. It really is nothing to worry about. Here are some articles:
Good luck!
Nancy, mom of 4 girls
free pregnancy book; free booklet for friends & relatives
My baby had a white spot/bright spot/EIF at the 20 week ultrasound. Of course, I worried and worried. The doctors said that it was a soft marker and since there were no other markers and my odds came back okay, there was no need to be concerned. My baby was born healthy with the exception of a VSD (hole in her heart) that was diagnosed at 2 months - no DS. It's hard to tell you not to worry, b/c I know you will...good luck.
One of my two sisters (whose babies' had EIFs but no DS) also had a heart defect at birth. It's important to note that the EIF had absolutely no relation to the heart defect, and EIFs do not increase chances of a heart defect.
Nancy, mom of 4 girls
free pregnancy book; free booklet for friends & relatives


text:
The universe is a glass of wine — An illustrated Richard Feynman quote
From Zen Pencils…
(via Bits and Pieces)
From Zen Pencils…
(via Bits and Pieces)
Hey, we noticed that you're not bored right now... Let's do this more often ;-)
Like us on Facebook & make it happen!
No thanks. I already like you.
We spend all of our time staring directly into glowing rectangles to find stories you'll love.
It's totally worth our impending digital retinopathy. Here's the best right now...


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A Jacksonville man was arrested after Sheriff's deputies responded to an alarm Saturday in a building on the 100 block of Veracruz Drive in Ponte Vedra Beach.
The Sheriff's Office reported that Ryan Patrick Wise, 20, of 11507 Birch Circle in Jacksonville, was found hiding in a closet in the building.
He was charged with burglary.
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Hotel Tannbergerhof
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A - 6764 Lech am Arlberg
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Interalp Touristik Sales & Marketing
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Brixentalerstr. 16
A - 6365 Kirchberg in Tirol
Tel: 0043 5357 504504 13
Fax: 0043 5357 504504 23
Email: email@example.com
Web: www.interalp-touristik.com
Technical Concept:
MICADO IT-Solutions
Hammerschmiedstraße 5
A-6370 Kitzbühel
All contents have been checked carefully. Regardless of this, no guarantee for correctness, completeness and actuality of the information can be assumed.
Content and structure of this webpage is protected by copyright. The usage or duplication of information, texts, parts of texts, content or structure of this webpage is only allowed with prior approval of the Hotel Tannbergerhof.
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Ironman Boulder
BEST BETDATE: August 3 2014, 7:00 AMCost:Free.CATEGORY: Sports and RecreationVENUE INFORMATION:Boulder Reservoir5565 N. 51st St.Boulder, CO 80301
One of the world's most mentally and physically grueling races is coming to Colorado. The inaugural Ironman Boulder will consist of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and a full marathon. Want to watch? Meet at Boulder High School, where a free shuttle will take you to Boulder Reservoir. Sun 7 a.m. .
More Information:
Visit ironman.com


text:
The shorter survival of black vs white women with breast cancer remains
unexplained. Tammemagi and colleagues assessed the association of comorbid
conditions with survival in a cohort of black and white breast cancer patients
who were followed up for a median of 10 years. They found more recurrence/progression
and worse all-cause, breast cancer–specific, and competing-cause survival
in black women. Adverse comorbidities, more common in black than white women,
were associated with worse all-cause and competing-cause survival, but that
did not explain racial disparity in breast cancer–specific survival.
See Article
Carroll and colleagues examined data from 5 national cross-sectional
surveys, conducted between 1960 and 2002, to assess trends in serum lipids
and lipoprotein levels. They report significant declines in mean total and
low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels in men aged 60 to 76 years and
women aged 50 to 74 years, no change in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol
levels, and a small nonsignificant increase in triglyceride levels. They report
that a Healthy People 2010 goal of a maximum of 17%
of adults with a total cholesterol level of 240 mg/dL (≥6.22 mmol/L) or
higher has been achieved.
Finne and colleagues estimated the risk of end-stage renal disease (ESRD)
and risk modification in a cohort of patients younger than 30 years diagnosed
with type 1 diabetes from 1965 to 1999. They report a cumulative incidence
of ESRD of 2.2% at 20 years and 7.8% at 30 years after diagnosis. A diabetes
diagnosis before age 5 years and in the later years of the study period were
associated with less risk of developing ESRD.
Interest in pay-for-performance mechanisms for quality improvement is
growing, but little evidence of their effectiveness exists. Rosenthal and
colleaguesArticle evaluated the impact of a health
plan's pay-for-performance program by comparing the performance of California
physicians, hospitals, and health plans that were subject to pay-for-performance
incentives with those in the Pacific Northwest who were not. The authors found
that both groups improved on the 3 quality measures assessed, with the California
network outperforming those in the Pacific Northwest on just 1 of the measures.
In an editorial, DudleyArticle discusses the design,
interpretation, and research funding for these strategies.
In a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of patients receiving optimal
therapy for heart failure, Demers and colleagues investigated the effect of
candesartan, an angiotensin receptor blocker, on risk of nonfatal myocardial
infarction (MI) or cardiovascular death. During a median follow-up of 37.7
months, patients receiving candesartan were at significantly lower risk of
this composite outcome compared with patients receiving placebo.
To examine the relationship of plasma fibrinogen concentration with
risk of incident coronary heart disease (CHD) and other major vascular and
nonvascular outcomes, members of the Fibrinogen Studies Collaboration conducted
a meta-analysis of individual data from 154 211 adult participants in
31 prospective studies. They found moderately strong associations of usual
plasma fibrinogen concentration with risks of CHD, stroke, and other vascular
and nonvascular mortality in healthy middle-aged and older adults.
Genetic studies are helping to reveal the etiology of Marfan syndrome
and providing hope of better therapies for individuals with the disorder.
Graphic Jump Location
Conceptual and practical aspects of palliative sedation are reviewed
by Lo and Rubenfeld in their discussion of Mrs B, a 49-year-old woman with
widely metastatic breast cancer and despite skilled palliative care, distressing,
unrelieved symptoms.
An examination of litigation history and the role of liability relief
in averting future influenza vaccine shortages.
For your patients: Information about palliative sedation.
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Ok, I am new to the group so I apologize in advance if this has been debated before. Here is my topic, after talking about praying at dinner. I thought maybe I am not as sensitive to others beliefs as I thought. So many times when I am thinking about someone or they are having problems in their lives I say "I will be praying for you". Which I do do, but my question is this, is this offensive? Thanks and I LOVE this group!!! How fun!
"Praying for you"
I do say it because I mean for the person to understand they are in my thoughts (and obviously my prayers). I am glad to hear that most of you wouldn't find it offensive, that is never my intent. I understand the before dinner deal.
~Human Being, Canadian, Wife, Full Time Mother, Jew, Mentor and Mentee
~Working our way to being debt-free | $193,000 mortgage debt remaining
I sometimes say "I will say a prayer for you" I don't know it sounds better than I will be praying for you. It sounds less condescending.
I have a friend/coworker who is probably more agnostic than athiest. She was on the verge of losing her job at our work due to some performance issues, (I have vented about my own issues with this job on here) and was desperatly trying to find a new job and was having the worst luck. I would listen to her vent and offer support, she is a great person she volunteers as a rape victim advocate and has run marathons for MDA, ect. I would tell her everytime she told me about an interview that I would say a prayer for her. I think it just made her feel better to know I actually cared rather than the fact that I was saying a prayer for her. Sometimes she would even skype me to say a prayer for her. Luckily she finally found another job.
It's only offensive or annoying if they're praying for me to change my ways. If I'm having a rough patch and someone says, "I'll pray for you," that doesn't bother me bc it's just their way of thinking of me and hoping things improve. If I'm in a heated debate over politics and religion and someone says, "Well I'll pray for you," then they're just being snarky and judgy. Not cool.
Some people get offended over little stuff like that just bc they're hurting really bad. If someone is scared for their future and they're told, "I'll pray for you" it might be tempting to come back with, "Save your damn prayers, what I need is MONEY!" But people sometimes just lash out when they're upset, and it doesn't reflect on either person when that happens.
"I will eviscerate you in fiction. Every pimple, every character flaw. I was naked for a day; you will be naked for eternity." --A Knight's Tale
Exactly what Dharma said.
When I tell my religious BFF about something that I'm struggling with and she offers to say a prayer I know it's about my situation and not the fact that she doesn't agree with my chosen faith.
My MIL on the other hand ends every visit, phone call and greeting card with it and it's only because we don't share the same faith - in her case I know it's because she's praying that we'll see the same light that she has, it drives me batshit. My only comfort is that she's stopped putting religious tracts in every freaking card.
Give a poor man $100 and he will spend it because he has to. Give a rich man $100 and he will do nothing because he can.
I don't find it offensive except as other have said, when it's the snarky "I'll pray for you to become Xian" kind of way. Mostly I see that here (in this group) rather than IRL. I also hate it when it's used for every situation, it just starts to feel like "I'll pray for you" is the same as the "uh huh" I use for "I'm still listening". If I'm struggling with what color to paint a room in my house I don't need prayer, I might need a suggestion however. Me (and this is just me) I'd rather have advice or another type of proactive gesture over prayer.
Melissa (order a Pet Portrait at Etsy and buy a painting at ArtPal as well as a matching shower curtain at FineArt America)
Whatever, I do what I want.
Elvy, mum to
Narra (96), ^Edan (99)^, Coen (99), Lala (01), Bindi (04), Jirrah (07), 'Rain & Kulyn 2 Sept '10 f/t vbac
I'm an atheist, and if someonen says they will pray for me, I say "thank you". It's the same thing as me saying, "I will be keeping you in my thoughts". Anyone who gets offended by that is petty. It's a nice gesture.
There is one exception to this. If someone says they would pray for me BECAUSE I'm an atheist, that's offensive.


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Featured Authors
Category Archives: Health
Latest From Health
The New Republic: We are Entering the Age of Alzheimer's
The New Republic this week published a lengthy, powerful piece by Kent Russell on Alzheimer's. Russell opens the piece by noting that we are approaching a public health crisis in Alzheimer's and dementia: Alzheimer's disease is practically unheard of in adults younger than 40, and very rare (one in 2,500) for those under 60. It affects 1 percent of 65-year-olds, 2 percent of 68-year-olds, 3 percent of 70-year-olds. After that, the odds start multiplying. The Read More >
Pitts Sounds off on Biosimilar Naming
This week, the Food and Drug Law Institute published a white paper – Biosimilar Nomenclature: Can we achieve the truth, the whole truth, & nothing but the truth? – outlining key considerations around the naming of biosimilars. Peter J. Pitts, President, Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and Former Associate Commissioner, US Food and Drug Administration, asserts that 'those who view distinctive biosimilar nomenclature naming as either contrary to safety or anti-competitive are addressing Read More >
4 Benefits of Plant-Made Pharmaceuticals
For centuries, plants have served as a natural source of treatments and therapies. New advances in biotechnology make it possible to turn plants into "factories" that produce therapeutic proteins for use in the manufacture of biologics. The potential of plant-made pharmaceuticals to combat life-threatening diseases has been in the news recently as they may be helpful in treating Ebola. Developing therapeutic proteins in plants can be a safer, more efficient and cost-effective method of protein Read More >
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Brings Attention to the Need For Private Funding
The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge – the social media phenomenon in which people post videos of themselves dumping buckets of water on their heads – has swept through social media like wildfire as part of an effort to raise both awareness and funding for ALS research. It's pretty safe to say that it's working. As of Thursday morning, the ALS Association had received $41.8 million from existing donors and more than 739,000 new donors over Read More >
WSJ Editorial: The Medical Innovation Threat
An editorial in today's Wall Street Journal looks at the rising threat the American insurance industry's increasingly loud attacks on Sovaldi, a revolutionary new Hepatitis C treatment pose for medical innovation and the development of new specialty drugs. As the editors rightly note, "Sovaldi is the kind of medicine that the drug scolds claim to want—a true scientific advance with a near-perfect cure rate for Hepatitis C, the liver-destroying virus that infects one of every 100 Read More >


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The Journey of the Dialectic
Anthony Mansueto
Philosophy means war on the marketplace. Premarket societies have no philosophy and they need no philosophy. Life in a village community provides a basis in experience for understanding the universe as an organized system, ordered to a common end, which in turn provides a criterion of value by which to judge human action. Even when villages become subjected to warlords, and the warlords claim to be divine, or at least divinely ordained, the people know better. The prophet who denounces the ba'alim (1) and calls the people to return to the living God needs no argument. His word, the word of justice, is enough.
It is different when markets begin to develop. Under the market system people experience society either as a system of quantities (prices) or else as a system of only externally related individuals. Not surprisingly they begin to experience the universe as a whole in much the same way. Thus the rise of mathematically oriented rationalism and of atomistic empiricism first, in a tentative way, in Ancient Greece, humanity's first market society, and thus the triumph of these doctrines with the emergence of generalized commodity production in the seventeenth century. Systems of quantities and systems of atoms have no telos, no global purpose. Analysis of such systems provides no way to rise to first principles, no way to find a criterion of value. The result is skepticism and nihilism-which, once again, we see emerging for the first time in Ancient Greece, in the form of sophism, and which has gradually become hegemonic in our own, more or less completely marketized society. And this skepticism about first principles and about principles of value is not just a reflex of the marketplace; it also serves to legitimate the market order. For without some criterion of value, grounded in a doctrine of the first principle, there is no basis on which to criticize the market allocation of resources or to argue for some alternative.
Philosophy emerged first and foremost as a response to the nihilism of the marketplace and as an attempt to reground ethics in an adequate doctrine of first principles-as an attempt to prove, contrary to the way things appear to people formed by the market, that the universe really is grounded in and ordered to a transcendental principle, a principle which can be known rationally (if also only very imperfectly) and which provides a criterion for judging actions and for ordering human society. Dialectics is the method of this quest for first principles, which is also always a quest for justice. Thus Socrates' debate with the rich young men who apprehend him at the beginning of the Republic (Republic 327a-331d). The task of finding the right way to order human society and the task of finding a way to rise to first principles are inseparable. Thus Aristotle's attack on "moneymaking (Aristotle, Politics 1256a-1258b)," and his argument that society exists to cultivate virtue (Aristotle, Ethics, 1178a-1181b), which, in turn, consists in the ordering of human beings, through knowledge, to the arche and telos of all things. Hegel, who argues that the market order must beregulated by a state with universal aims (Hegel, Philosophy of Right, sections 205, 236, 241, 243, 245, 246, 255, 290, 324) and Marx who argues that it must be transcended entirely (Marx 1848/1978) continue a long tradition of dialectical philosophy.
It is, however, precisely this kind of philosophy which has come increasingly under attack from the most diverse quarters. As early as the seventeenth century rationalist and empiricist thinkers began to call into question the teleological cosmology on which this kind of philosophy depends (Spinoza 1675/1955, Hume 1779). Kant (Kant 1781/1969) went further, calling into question the very foundations of rational metaphysics and rendering the whole enterprise of rising to first principles suspect to say the least. Analytic philosophers reject much of the dialectical tradition out of hand as nothing more than a collection of "language games" while postmodernists indict all attempts to ground ethics in rational knowledge of God and the universe with responsibility for the most diverse forms of totalitarian terror (Lyotard 1979/1984). Even those sympathetic to the dialectical tradition seem convinced that we can no longer "do philosophy in the old way." (2)
I would like to suggest that this judgement is terribly mistaken. Not only can we do philosophy in the sense in which it has historically been understood by the dialectical tradition, but we must. In order to understand why, we need to turn back and examine more closely what we have already suggested about the origins of the dialectical tradition, and then analyze just why philosophy in the sense understood by this tradition has come to seem so difficult. In the process we shall arrive at some interesting conclusions regarding the unity of the dialectical tradition and the reasons for the current crises of both its materialist and idealist wings.
We have already suggested that dialectics emerged as a response to the nihilism of the marketplace, as an attempt to reground ethics in an authentic doctrine of the first principle. There were, to be sure, earlier reflections on the organization of the universe, reflections sometimes remaining at the level of the imagination, as did the religious symbolisms of most communitarian and tributary societies, (3) and which sometimes achieved a modest degree of abstraction, as did the cosmological speculations of the Pre-Socratics. Philosophy as we have come to understand it, however, involves more than just a reflection on fundamentals. It requires rigorous argumentation, argumentation which yields a judgement regarding beauty, truth, goodness, etc. And this kind of argumentation becomes possible only with the advent of a market society. This is true for two reasons. First, rigorous argument requires formalization: the clarification of definitions and the discovery of the rules of logical inference. And this, in turn, is a by-product of the emergence of theoretical mathematics. And where is mathematics born but in the marketplace, that universe of quantities par excellence? It is little wonder that the founders of theoretical mathematics-Thales of Miletus and his student Pythagoras-were both merchants, and that Thales, in addition to his more theoretical achievements, was perhaps the first to recognize the determination of price by the play of market forces. (4)
But formalization is not enough. The speculations of the Pre-Socratics are not yet philosophy in the same sense as the dialogues of Plato. It is necessary to go beyond true judgements to a judgement regarding truth, to go beyond a judgement that something is good to a judgement about the good. And for this to happen the very principles of value themselves must have been called into question, so that it is necessary to re-establish the criterion before the particular judgement can be made. This, precisely, is what happened in democratic Athens, and it happened because of the operation of the marketplace.
What makes Greece so unique is that it was the planet's first market society. Long on the periphery of the great empires of the Mediterranean Basin, Greece benefited from the emergence of new agricultural technologies centered on the cultivation of grapes and olives. The result was the development of a vigorous commercial economy centered on production for export. Gradually Greece and its colonies replaced the tributary empires as the "center" of the Mediterranean system. The marketization of Greek society was accompanied by internal differentiation. Nouveau riche elements challenged traditional dynasts while many of the peasants fell into debt peonage. But then something interesting happened. A series of rebellions in the fifth and sixth centuries halted this process, and imposed a kind of compromise. The reforms of Solon and Pericles guaranteed the land rights of the peasantry, providing credits and other protection against debt peonage and permitted them to participate in the political arena. But these reforms also left intact the landholdings of the ruling classes, who were forced to turn to chattel slaves to work their large estates (Anderson 1974: 29-32, 38).
This combination of a formally democratic political arena and fundamental class conflicts imposed on the ruling classes the task of securing the consent of a majority which did not share their interests. Thus the function of the rhetor, whose job it was to sway the masses in the public assembly. The sophists, of course, were first and foremost teachers of rhetoric, who trained rich young men in the arts of persuasion, so that they could ably serve their families' interests in the public arena. Trained by the sophists, these rhetors could "make the worse appear the better cause," so that in a few short years people began to doubt that there really was any such thing as the beautiful, the true, or the good. Where in the tributary state there was still one common end, even if it was deformed and turned to the interests of a single warlord, here the state became simply an instrument of purely private ends. The polity itself lost all integrity.
The Socratic dialectic is first and foremost an attempt to rectify this situation, by showing that there is, in fact, something Good in itself which can serve as a criterion of judgement-a standard by which it is possible to find the money-makers wanting and argue for an alternative allocation of resources. This is the program which is set out so powerfully in the Republic and to which, despite their many differences, both Plato and Aristotle, and the whole body of their successors adhered. But is the dialectic successful? Are Socrates and Plato and Aristotle actually able to rise to knowledge of the first principle? In order to answer this question we need to examine the nature of the dialectic a bit more closely, in order to see just what is involved.
At first sight it might appear that there is no such thing as the dialectic. Surely Plato's method is not Aristotle's, and even between thinkers generally recognized as "Platonic" or "Aristotelian" there appear to be fundamental differences of approach. Compare, for example, Philo and Augustine, or Ibn Sina and Aquinas. And surely there is a vast gulf between these philosophers and such later dialecticians as Hegel and Engels. I want to argue, however, that all of these thinkers, their very real differences notwithstanding, share a common aim, as well as significant common ground with respect to method and doctrine.
A first approximation of this method and doctrine is laid out by Plato in the Republic. Plato argues that those who rule the city, the Guardians, must be knowers of the Good-and that they can become knowers of the Good only through a long process of theoretical and practical education. This education begins with gymnastic and music (which for the Greeks included all those activities over which the Muses presided, roughly corresponding to the later liberal arts). This training, which the guardians share with their military auxiliaries, lasted until about 15-18; after which there was a period of military training. Only after this will those selected as Guardians proceed to the study of more advanced mathematics, and then, after the age of 30, to the study of dialectic in the narrower sense, or logic. Only after a long period of political service in subordinate posts between the ages of 35 and 50 will they be called to membership in the high council which devotes itself at once to philosophical reflection and to governing the city (Republic 376e-412b, 521c-541b).
This means that the dialectic by which we rise to first principles is both theoretical and practical. It begins with a solid grounding in the arts, especially the arts of argument. We must master the process of drawing out the implications and internal contradictions of our own ideas and those of others and driving towards a higher synthesis. This, in turn prepares us to engage the people regarding their interests and projects, drawing out their latent potential, wrestling with difficult social contradictions, and gradually leading the polis, as we ourselves are led, to seek a higher good.
There is, however, one respect in which Plato's Republic falls short of being a complete validation of the dialectical approach. At no point does he demonstrate or even attempt to demonstrate that the universe itself is actually ordered to the first principle. Indeed he seems to argue that even if the perfect state were attained, it would inevitably degenerate (Republic 543a-576b), something which he later argued, in the Timaeus, was the result of a fundamental cosmological fact: the resistance of matter to form, imposed with difficulty by the Demiurge, whose universe is the best copy possible of the First Principle, but which nonetheless represents a fall from perfection. Because of this pessimistic cosmology Plato is left with the conclusion that we can know the Good, but that we cannot realize it, at least not perfectly, in this world of change and becoming.
It was precisely this defect in the Platonic dialectic which Aristotle attempted to remedy. Aristotle's ascent to the first principle runs not around but through physics. Matter for Aristotle is the possibility of organization, form its actuality. Motion is the gradual realization, over the course of time, of the latent potential of matter as it moves towards the perfection of form. The explanation of particular forms of motion involves an understanding of the matter in question, of the form which is being perfected, and of the efficient cause-that by which the change takes place, as well as the end towards which the change is ordered. Ultimately, however, the whole process of change is grounded in the attractive power of the first unmoved mover, the incredible beauty, truth, goodness and integrity which draw all things to itself. A complete explanation of the universe is possible, Aristotle argues, only in terms of this Unmoved Mover, a principle which on later reflection he was able to show to be infinite and necessary and perfect-and thus divine. It is this conviction that the universe is ordered to-in fact tends towards-the Good which explains the hopefulness of Aristotle and his followers regarding the cultivation of virtue and the development of a just social order.
But even Aristotle was not able to show that all things are perfectly ordered to the unmoved mover. The sublunar realm is subject not only to natural motion, which tends to the perfection of each form, but also to violent motion-bodies decay, javelins are thrown-which cannot be so easily explained in teleological terms. This sublunar realm will always fall short of perfection. Thus the tendency towards authoritarianism in Aristotle and his fondness for monarchy (Metaphysics 1075a-1076a), and thus the static character of the cosmos as a whole, in spite of growth and development at the level of the organism and the individual.
But this is not the full extent of the problem. The very division between natural and violent motion, and between the celestial and sublunar realms, constitutes a fundamental defect in Aristotelian science, a defect which eventually brought the whole edifice of teleological cosmology-and the dialectic ascent to the first principle-crashing down around us. The new mechanistic science which replaced it renounced explanation in favor of formal (mathematical) description and thus "had no need" of the "hypothesis" of God.
The effect was not, to be sure, instantaneous. Rationalist philosophers attempted to revive the formalistic ontological argument (Descartes 1641/1975), which was not dependent on the results of physics. And Newtonian science left room for, even if it did not really require, a creator and cosmic architect. Thus Leibniz' argument based on the principle of sufficient reason (Leibniz 1713/1992) and Paley's Natural Theology (Paley 1802/1994). But when the full implications of the mechanistic program became apparent with the discovery of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, with its somber prophecy of an inevitable heat death of the universe, these arguments rapidly lost their credibility. I would like to suggest that it is this cosmological pessimism which lies behind the conviction that "we can no longer do philosophy in the old way." Mechanistic science has convinced most people that the universe is ultimately meaningless. In such a universe there is no first principle-no God-and no criterion for moral judgement.
It is in this context that the fate of dialectics since the beginning of the nineteenth century must be understood. Hegelian dialectics represented an attempt to reground and revitalize the dialectical tradition on the basis of a newly discovered teleology-that of human history. The history of human civilization between 3000 B.C.E. and the European Middle Ages had been one of stagnation and decline (Childe 1851, Lerner 1991). It is little wonder that earlier dialecticians found teleological development only in the organism and in the human person, and not in society or the cosmos has a whole. The tremendous progress ushered in by the industrial, democratic, and scientific revolutions changed this radically. For the first time in millennia humanity began to experience its own history as one of growth and development. Hegel joined this historical dialectics to a philosophy of nature based on Newtonian (or, as he would prefer it, Keplerian) physics which, as we have noted, while not strictly teleological, nonetheless still permitted conclusion to a meaningful universe if the source of this meaning could be found elsewhere than in basic physical law. The result was the only "modern" system to attempt an ascent to the first principle by means of reason and rationally oriented practice. Even so, "nature" was subsumed as something alienated and external which found its truth only in subjectivity and Spirit.
Dialectical materialism rejected the Hegelian solution for two distinct reasons. Marx in particular was deeply rooted in a Jewish tradition which located knowledge of God-da'ath elohim-in the just act, and which was skeptical about any attempt to capture this knowledge whether in representations or in concepts. That this tradition was reflected, however, not simply in an iconoclasm and a tension with religious institutions which had abandoned the struggle for justice but rather in a hardened atheism, can largely be attributed to what science, by the mid-nineteenth century, seemed to be saying about the ultimate meaning of the universe. And here it is Engels rather than Marx who is the key figure. It is impossible to read the Dialectics of Nature (1880/1940) without sensing the urgency of this question for Engels-and the tragedy of his inability to resolve it satisfactory. And Engels' project founders on nothing more or less than the Second Law of Thermodynamics which, for him as for most of his contemporaries, appears to condemn the universe to a slow thermal death, and to predict a gradual degeneration and disintegration of intelligence, of life, indeed of all complex organization. Such a universe is clearly not ordered to an end, much less an end infinite, necessary, and perfect, and thus divine in character. Thus the atheism of the materialist wing of the dialectical tradition.
But there is more. In the absence of a divine telos the merely human-historical dialectic becomes limited and contingent and loses its authority. Why side with labor and the development of complex organization? Why not side with death and disintegration? Why produce when one can just consume? Indeed, the whole socialist project, rather than expressing an immanent cosmic teleology becomes what the postmodernists have been claiming all along that it is-an attempt to represent as universal an interest and a tendency which is partial and particular, and an attempt to impose order from the outside, a project at once totalizing and totalitarian in character (Lyotard 1979/1984).
From this point of view the crisis of the dialectical tradition seems inevitable and inescapable. How, after all, can philosophers, who above all are committed to reason and to truth, evade the harsh verdicts of science? There is, however, another way to look at the question. We have already suggested that moral relativism, and the larger inability to perceive the ultimate meaningfulness of the universe in which it is embedded, are in fact a product of the alienation engendered by the marketplace. Would it be surprising if a tendency which was already apparent in the petty commodity society of Ancient Athens were to become absolutely overwhelming in our own society, in which market relations have penetrated every sphere of social life? Is it possible that the "harsh verdict of science," far from representing reason's best attempt at the truth, is in fact little more than the spontaneous ideology generated by the market system?
This insight is powerful and compelling, and if we had more time we could demonstrate it convincingly. It does not by itself, however, show that the "verdict" in question is wrong, and that the universe is, in fact, an organized system ordered to a divine telos. For this something more is needed-we must actually make an argument about the organization of the universe. This is a daunting task, but one place to start is with the crisis of Aristotelian physics, the crisis of which, we have argued, was the proximate cause of the crisis of the whole dialectical tradition. As we analyze this crisis, we must keep in mind that Aristotelian science never held a monopoly in the ancient and medieval worlds. Rather it competed with a number of other traditions, including the atomism of Democritus and the Epicureans, and the mathematical rationalism of the Pythagoreans, a tradition continued by Eudoxus and Ptolemy, among others. When it became apparent that Aristotle's physics was unable to produce a unified theory of motion-that it could not reduce to one principle all change, whether celestial or sublunar, natural or violent-there were, fundamentally, two distinct alternatives. One could attempt to generalize the concept of teleology so that it could accommodate phenomena like thrown javelins and decaying corpses-and eventually the astronomical data produced by Copernicus, Tycho, and Kepler, or one could discard teleology entirely in favor of some other paradigm-atomism, for example, or mathematical rationalism, or some amalgam of the two.
We know which road the sciences took and we have seen the implications for philosophy. Most histories, even those which are critical in some ways of mechanistic science, emphasize the progress which was made as a result of this choice. And it is certainly true that authentic knowledge has been produced. But is mechanistic science really any better able than Aristotle was to advance a unified theory of motion? I doubt it. Consider the state of contemporary science. The numerous "theories of everything" notwithstanding, physicists are unable to unify relativity and quantum mechanics, dynamics and thermodynamics-much less to offer a convincing explanation of the emergence of such complex systems as life and intelligence (Tipler 1994, Gal-Or 1987, Prigogine 1977, 1979, 1984). There are, furthermore, good reasons to doubt that modern science really "explains" anything, as opposed to offering a very rigorous mathematical description. All attempts to reduce the mathematical formalisms of physics to necessary principles, from which everything else can be derived, end up in a discourse about an infinity of possible worlds which never even begins to explain our own.
There is a sense in which all complete explanation is ultimately teleological. As Aristotle himself demonstrated, the only principle which can explain everything else, while at the same time fully explaining itself, is one which is infinite, necessary, and perfect, and which moves all things as it draws them to itself, always and only kindling matter's desire for Being. And yet mathematical formalism excludes teleology.
Does this mean that we should abandon modern science and go "back to Aristotle?" Nothing could be less Aristotelian. The particulars of Aristotle's physics have, in many respects, been falsified, and much of modern physics clearly is "true" at least in the sense of offering a rigorous, formal description of the universe. What we need to do is to recognize the limitations of these formalisms from the standpoint of developing a complete explanation and the need to supplement them with explanatory strategies which at least allow that the universe might be ordered to a divine telos. At the same time, the concept of teleology must be expanded so that it can accommodate contradiction, chaos, and disintegration, which are all clearly part of material reality.
It is interesting to note that in recent years there has been progress in both of these areas. The discovery that many fundamentally cosmological constants are "fine tuned" in just the way necessary to make possible the development of complex organization, life, and intelligence, suggests a new openness to teleological thinking (Harris 1991, 1992), even if some of the particular manifestations of this "anthropic cosmology" have been poorly informed philosophically (Barrow and Tipler 1986, Tipler 1994). Recent work in nonlinear dynamics and thermodynamics, meanwhile, especially that of Ilya Prigogine (Prigogine 1977, 1979, 1984) and his collaborators has begun both to build a link between mathematical physics and a doctrine of emergent organization, and to demonstrate the complex interplay between order and chaos in the development of higher levels of organization. Already this work is leading to new departures in cosmology which explicitly reject the pessimism of the standard model and argue for a universe infinite and necessary, and ultimately tending towards perfection (Lerner 1991).
Much of this work may seem far removed from the ethical concerns which motivate most dialecticians, but it is of critical importance, for it represents the only way to resurrect, and indeed to successfully complete, the Socratic project to show that the universe is an organized system, ordered to a divine telos and that this teleology defines, in and of itself, an ethical imperative. We humans are called to wake up, to participate in the cosmohistorical evolutionary process, to develop our own capacities and to add something to the beauty, truth, goodness and integrity of the universe. From here the demonstration that the market fails to optimally allocate resources for this task is simple. The market "knows" only supply and demand, interests and capacities. It is unable to read our latent potential and is blind to the attractive power of the telos. Thus the need for an alternative, the development of which will itself be enriched by a deeper understanding of the way in which complex organization emerges.
And so, the journey continues. The great tradition begun by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle continues to play a critical leading role in the "education of humanity," breaking the chains of illusion and despair engendered by the market system and ordering us to a higher good.
(1) The Hebrew ba'al comes from a root which means "to own." The term was used interchangeably for the local warlord and the principal local "deity" made in his image-as well as by women for their husbands.
(2) This is a phrase I have heard countless times from colleagues around the world, even those associated with such organizations as the International Society for Universalism and other organizations dedicated, at least in principle, to the dialectical tradition.
(3) A communitarian society is one which has mastered agriculture and has mechanisms for centralizing surplus and investing it to promote the development of human social capacities; in a tributary society a warlord class has developed which extracts surplus through rents, taxes, or forced labor and expends it on warfare and luxury consumption. See Amin 1980, Mansueto 1995.
(4) Foreseeing an unusually good crop of olives one year, he secured control of every olive press in his region, and then demanded monopoly prices for their use-though at least one story suggests that having made his theoretical point he relented and let the presses at their "fair" or "natural" price.
Amin, Samir
1980 Class and Nation, Historically and in the Current Crisis. New York: Monthly Review
Anderson, Perry
1974 Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism. London: New Left
c. 350 B.C.E./1946 Politics. trans Ernest Barker. Oxford: Clarendon Press
c. 350 B.C.E./1952 Metaphysics, trans. Richard Hope, New York: Columbia University Press
c. 350 B.C.E./1973 Ethics, trans. Richard McKeon in Introduction to Aristotle, Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Barrow, John and Tipler, Frank
1986 Anthropic Cosmological Principle. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Childe, V. Gordon
1851 Man Makes Himself. New York, Mentor
Descartes, Rene
1641/1975 Meditations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press
Engels, Frederick
1880/1940 The Dialectics of Nature. New York: International
Gal-Or, Benjamin
1987 Cosmology: Physics and Philosophy. New York: Springer Verlag
Harris, Errol
1991 Cosmos and Anthropos. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press
1992 Cosmos and Theos. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press
Hegel, G.W.F.
1820/1942 Philosophy of Right. Oxford: Oxford University Press
1830/1971 Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, trans. William Wallace, Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press
Hume, David.
1779 Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. London: Longmans, Green
Kant, Immanuel
1781/1969 Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill
Leibniz, Gottfried von
1713/1992 Monadology. Amherst, NY: Prometheus
Lerner, Eric
1991 The Big Bang Never Happened, New York: Vintage
Lyotard, Jean-Francois
1979/1984 The Postmodern Condition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
Mansueto, Anthony
1995 Towards Synergism: The Cosmic Significance of the Human Civilizational Project. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
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1848/1978 The Communist Manifesto, in Marx-Engels Reader. New York: Norton
Paley, William
1802/1986 Natural Theology. Charlottesville, VA: Ibis
c. 385 B.C.E/1968 Republic, trans. Alan Bloom, New York: Basic
c. 385 B.C.E./1960 Timaeus. New York: Penguin
Prigogine, Ilya
1977 Self-Organization in Non-Equilibrium Systems, with Nicolis, G. New York: Wiley 1979 From Being to Becoming: Time and Complexity in the Physical Sciences. New York: Freeman
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Strangers and Freaks/100%
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Crimson Ridley
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According to the checklist on the social club, I'm approaching the end of the main storyline (my last mission was Planning the Score) with 64/69 missions complete.
I'm concerned about Strangers and Freaks. I've been diligent about doing them whenever they appear and at this point I have 48/58. I'm missing:
3 Pulling Favors (Again, Still, and One Last)
You may need to ring Tonya to open these
A Starlet in Vinewood
Find all 50 Letter Scraps to open this mission
Death at Sea
This is opened after buying the Submarine Dock with Michael
The Final Frontier
You get this for finding all 50 Spaceship Parts
Uncalculated Risk
Complete all 13 Parachute Jumps to open this last mission for Dom
Mrs. Phillips
This and the one below are unlocked after completing the game
Damaged Goods
The Last One
This is opened after getting 100%
Do I have to do something special to get these to appear or will they come eventually? Is it possible that I've missed something permanently?
That's how you get them all (bolded in the quote.)
Many thanks to Cpt Slaugh7er (xboxachievements.com) for the signature!
My xba account:
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R.I.P. to the most wonderful person to have ever lived; my Nanna. 03/11/1932 - 06/10/2013. You will be forever remembered, and forever missed. I love you so much.
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Download The Strokes' new 'Under Cover of Darkness' song for free
It's nothing new, but it's certainly bringing back some good memories.
Back with their first new studio material in five years is the Strokes and their single "Under Cover of Darkness," from their forthcoming album "Angles."
The song is available for free download for 48 hours (starting at around 2:35 p.m. EST today, Feb. 9) via the band's website, for the small price of
a herd of cattle some personal information, such as email.
The guitars and bass are pushed way, way forward, while Julian Casablancas' vocals take back seat. He queries, "Will you wait for me?" Well we already did, buddy, and you've zoomed the Dolorean back past "Earth," to "Room on Fire." It's less garage and rapturous snottiness, but a robust mix of full '90s modern rock (sans reverb bath, we're looking at you Kings Of Leon) and catchy '60s love songs. I half expected the band to bust into an a capella round at the end.
After this ditty is taken down, fans can sit tight with their YouTubes and Facebooks (OK, and the radio) until "Under the Cover of Darkness'" retail release on Feb. 15.
"Angles," as previously reported, is out on March 22.
In other Strokes news, their manager Ryan Gentles (I live in hope that's his real name) announced this on Twitter, said simply: "SXSW - The Strokes… more to come on thestrokes.com."
The Strokes have already been confirmed to help headline 2011 Coachella.
What do you think of the track? Do you like the direction the band is taking?