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Renegotiating Sexual Subjectivity on Porn Sites for Women
|Caroline Godart
January 2007
Pay websites designed specifically by and for hetero/bisexual women are very few, very similar, and very conventional; likewise, free sites contain comparable material, only much worse, featuring amateur pictures of naked men, sometimes of naked men and dressed women, naked couples performing conventional lovemaking, and bachelorette parties (i.e. women dancing with male strippers).
The conspicuous absence of less boring porn for women on the internet, the ultimate modern medium, led me to research in greater depth what is actually available. When googling porn for women, I found many entries, but systematically ended up running into these pages: www.womensporno.com, www.justfortheladies.com, www.sssh.com, www.forthegirls.com, as well as a site called www.femalepov.com that was conspicuously designed by men. Many websites (mainly blogs) are devoted to written pornography for women, but this work aims at concentrating on visual material.
I have striven to locate and analyze easily available porn made by women for women. I have logically chosen to focus on Internet sources, and when it came to choosing the website on which I was going to concentrate, I simply picked the first one to appear when I googled porn for women: www.sssh.com. Since its free preview tour is very representative of that of the other sites mentioned above, it is likely that their contents are similar too; the tours typically feature pictures of naked couples in suggestive positions, naked men, and men masturbating. They also list the different materials present on the website, such as erotic stories, hard-core videos, humor and advice sections, and erotic horoscopes.
This paper analyzes the content of sssh.com from a third-wave feminist perspective that both acknowledges the existence of rape culture and the necessity for women to reclaim the sexual realm. Sssh.com, although it does open some space for sexual experimentation, is ultimately constricting and normative because, as a discursive entity, it does not acknowledge the existence and the consequences of rape culture, and thereby participates in its reinforcement. This is all the more worrying since, because it is a Web medium, its influence on subjective formation is far-reaching, for sites engulf their users in a matrix that requires their entire attention, both mental and physical.
After paying for the subscription on sssh.com, a welcoming page opens with the following text:
The dominant colors are light blue and pink and the text is italicized, conferring an aura of non-aggressiveness and femininity to the website, probably aimed at relieving the female customer of any feelings of guilt at watching porn. The designers have deliberately chosen graphic features that stand in sharp contrast with ones usually associated with unbridled sexual fantasies. These design aspects are in tune with the tone of the text, the goal of which is to remind women that although their sexuality is taboo, it is part and parcel of their lives, woven as it is in the feminine psyche.
After clicking on « Enter, » the member
is brought to the main menu, organized into different parts:
on the top of the page, the sections « Advice Goddess,
Your Corner, The Boudoir, Beauty
and Fashion, and Sssh Connection offer, among
other things, sex trivia, advice, tarot and horoscopes, beauty
tips, and letters from customers. The member finds the actual
porn material on the middle of the page, arranged according to
various fantasies: naked men, couples, lesbian (described as
bi-curious) and women masturbating. Each of these
sections includes erotic stories, movies, and picture galleries,
rated according to their level of intensity: one pair of lips
means that the material is Naughty; Some Nudity and Mild
Sexual Situations, two pairs that it is Naughtier;
Full Nudity and Sexual Situations, and three pairs, the
maximum, imply that what is shown is Very Naughty; Very
Explicit! XXX. All of these sections also feature a preliminary
text that, again, explicitly aims at removing the members
potentially guilty feelings. For instance, the section featuring
lesbian sex reassures the viewer about the normality' of
her sexuality with a rather awkard quote from Florence Nightingale
on her experiences with women[1], followed by this introduction:
In the same vein, the introduction to porn movies reads, Adult movies are a wonderful way to heat things up between you and your partner. Watching movies together can be very erotic! and helpful in giving you new ideas to incorporate into your own lovemaking repertoire.
The website purports to be empowering, offering new sexual horizons to women, while striving to convince them that it is legitimate and natural for them to have not only fantasies, but also fantasies that do not only involve conventional heterosexuality. The measure of how far normal women can go in their exploration is given at the bottom of the page, in the section where the website offers to introduce its members to what it refers to as The World of Kink, that is, fetishism and bondage. It contains the usual picture galleries, movies, and stories, as well as the Sssh Friend Finder, which gives the opportunity to find other like-minded people with specific sexual tastes and lifestyles. This section also presents two extensive introductions to bondage and fetishism, explaining at length that S/M is fun, safe, and the sign of a healthy relationship based on trust, and that a fetish is whatever turns you on and heats you up, from legs to leather and from corsets to long hair.
By giving women access to more unconventional sex, what Gayle Rubin calls low status sex (11), like masturbation, bisexuality, or S/M, sssh.coms explicit goal is the sexual empowerment of women in an open and guiltless environment. Twenty years after the peak of the anti-pornography movement that has raged in the U.S. since the 1970s, it is interesting to see a porn site dedicated to women that features some S/M (with dominant/submissive men and women). The anti-porn movement, led by such figures as Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, has directed much of its gall precisely at S/M images and movies, accusing them not only of presenting a dehumanized view of sexuality, but also of trivializing the humiliation and torture of women. Yet they have conveniently omitted to mention the fact that much S/M, both lesbian and heterosexual, features dominant women taking advantage of submissive men and/or women (Soble 33). Such critics' literalist interpretations have led them unequivocally to assume that pornography is causally linked to real-life violence against women: pornography is the theory and rape is the practice (Ellen Willis qtd. in Gubar 714), goes their well-known slogan, because, as MacKinnon puts it, sooner or later, in one way or another, the consumer wants to live out the pornography further in three dimensions (MacKinnon 19). Pornography, seen as the epitome of womens sexual oppression, is supposed to infect the rest of society (Rubin 28), making sexism and violence against women ubiquitous.
This type of intellectual stance is, as Michel Foucault might argue, typical of our era, for it seeks to find in sex an explanation for everything. Although anti-porn intellectuals have rightfully pointed to and analyzed rape culture, they have also recreated a very conservative and normative sexual morality, which naturalizes certain (in fact very few) sexual behaviors, while deliberately categorizing others as abnormal.
This aspect of their thought has been criticized by pro-sex feminists, and most famously by Gayle Rubin, who argues that feminism is not an adequate tool for an analysis of sexuality, just as Marxism is not suited to the study of gender relations (35). Rubin and others have supported the view that womens sexual liberation, which should include, for instance, the possibility of playing with patriarchy and sexism by endorsing standardized gender roles in sexuality, is at odds with a feminist political discourse that would aspire to control and regulate sexuality.
Therefore, another problem with the stringent ideology of the anti-porn movement is that it completely disregards the fact that to a lot of women, porn simply is exciting; in spite of everything, women are consumers of pornography. Of course it is possible, as many anti-porn activists have done, to denounce these womens sexual fantasies as phallocratic, making them the absolute and unconscious victims of an alienating order. Still, I would argue that this stance is too dehumanizing itself to be taken seriously, since it implies that women have absolutely no agency over their sexuality. In contrast, Ellen Williss analysis seems more fruitful:
How does contemporary pornography for women stand amidst these heated debates? First of all, it should be noted that the outrage of sex-negative feminists was mostly grounded in the assumption that porn led to rape. Logically, the porn debates have centered exclusively on porn for men: since we live in a phallogocentric society, activists and theoreticians have focused on the dangerous potential connection between rape and porn only in respect of the implied male viewer. Porn for women has been completely disregarded because only a small minority of rapes are committed by women, and, mostly, because the main enemy targeted by the anti-porn movement has been patriarchy itself and thus the pornographic materials that seem to cater to its needs. Yet, since porn sites for women are porn sites, functioning in a sexual discourse forged within phallogocentrism, it is important to ask whether they can be said to participate in the oppression of women and a reinforcement of rape culture.
First, though, it is crucial to elaborate on the problems raised by a second issue: Do porn sites for women completely do away with the conclusions of anti-porn theoreticians, or do they prohibit fantasies that involve depicting women in a submissive, humiliating position? Drawing on the pictures and movies featured on sssh.com, it seems that the website tries to find a sometimes uncomfortable compromise between these two antithetical stances. Unlike anti-porn activists, the site designers acknowledge the fact that sex is essentially objectifying (Soble 67): the website is unapologetically pornographic, and pictures bodies as sexual objects the sole raison detre of which is to excite sexual desire in the viewer. The S/M section thumbs its nose at sex-negative feminists, and presents both men and women in submissive or dominant roles. Women and men are tied up, whipped, and endowed with fetishes like high heels or latex corsets and bras; in short, the regular apparatus displayed on average S/M porn sites is well-represented.
Still, it is hard to repress the feeling that, on the website, S/M does not completely belong to what is considered to be a normal sexuality, and in this sense, it is closely akin to the anti-porn morality. This conservative viewpoint is implied in the very title of the section, The World of Kink, which quite simply places S/M in a different universe. It is reinforced by the actors suspiciously bad performances in the S/M scenes: not only do they not look "turned on," but it seems that they do not even try to give that impression. This artificiality, which is not as blatant in other sections of the site, leads to the conclusion that S/M may be fun, but that it remains strange; it is acceptable in order to spice up a dull sex life, but should not constitute its basis.
Moreover, although the site purports to connect women with their wildest desires, the limits put on their expression are significant, as the images remain relatively soft, even the extra naughty, three-lip rated ones. For instance, bondage and penetration (except with a dildo) seem to be mutually exclusive activities: a woman is either tied up or penetrated, but the two never happen simultaneously. In only one picture gallery does a woman suffer (symbolic) physical pain: she is lying naked on a bench, unbound but with her eyes covered, while a naked man flogs her. But his efforts are so lax that it seems that he is dusting her back, rather than inflicting any sort of physical torture. The text that accompanies this series of pictures, instead of being the usual short erotic narrative, is a sort of instruction manual to spanking. We learn, for instance, that good, erotic spanking is an art form, and that banging off too enthusiastically will almost always lead to quick disillusion.
Another of the picture galleries, entitled Why is bondage fun? displays similarly educational content, explaining why the badly shot amateur pictures of a hooded, fat, naked man clinically inserting a dildo into a bound womans vagina can be irresistibly exciting. I obviously do not intend to deride the sexual act itself; rather, I want to point to the fact that this is actually the only series offering more realistic, less polished material, more credible actors, and what seems to be real physical pain. And it is interesting to note that precisely this series distinguishes itself by its cheap appearance, an outstanding feature in a resolutely middlebrow website. The contrast between the undeniably poor quality of the pictures and the enthusiastic tone of the text leads me once again to think that the designers of sssh.com do not really think of S/M as a legitimate form of sexuality that deserves to be treated with the same standards of quality, as, for instance, traditional heterosexual intercourse.
But even more disturbing than what is featured on the website is in fact what is not there. For instance, there are no images or texts featuring anal sex, although this is a fairly common practice. Moreover, one could imagine scenes evoking orgies, sex with obese people, transsexuals, or women with huge or, alternatively, very small breasts, to mention but a few examples of the usual material found on porn sites whose implied audience is male. One could even dream of a porn site for women that would feature elements that cannot be found on a male site. Regrettably, such hope is forsaken. Most importantly, the website does not provide any material explicitly designed to feed rape fantasies. This feature is particularly striking, for these form a favorite masturbatory scenario for a lot of women. How could it be otherwise in a culture that has made the fear of rape a permanent one in womens minds, thereby forging a female sexual subjectivity at least partially grounded in violence?[2] But female sexuality, as it is shown and understood on sssh.com once again, a site that purports to know what women want is sweet, pink and blue, polished, glossy and middle-class. This raises some interesting questions, particularly in relation to the type of subjectivity that is called forth by the website.
It has become a truism to state that subjectivity does not originate from within, but is the result of external forces. Marxist and Neo-Marxist theory[3] has shown that ideology, and in particular its most efficient agent, popular culture, has the power of creating desires and needs, of rendering given ideas commonsensical, and of shaping and policing behaviors. The very form of sssh.com makes this subjective interpellation even more effective, for online surfing gives the viewer the impression that she is in control of the content. First, the website offers the possibility of engaging actively with it, in fact of participating in the creation of its textual content, through its interactive sections. The forum features a few conversations that tend to echo the general content of the website. The most successful of them in terms of the responses that it triggered investigates the topic of I cant be the only one who loves sex, a rather unwittingly ironic one on a porn site. The responses, as can be expected, wholeheartedly agree with the first post, asserting the position that sex is wonderful and that women should feel free to experiment with their sexuality for instance, by watching porn. The site also offers the possibility of submitting photographs, poems or erotic short stories, as long as they do not depict any sexual activity involving bestiality (you can write stories about supernatural beasts like ghosts, unicorns, werewolves, etc.) or underage persons. None of those posted on the website depart in any way from its general position on female sexuality, which may either point to a self-policing (or lack of imagination) of the site users, or to a censoring on the part of the administrators.
Secondly, by clicking on items that she selects herself, the sssh member goes on a self-designed journey through a medium that offers her different possibilities at any moment. For instance, she can choose, on the opening page of sssh.com, to visit the masturbation section (All About You), then click on the introductory text, see a picture of a clitoris, go back one step, see pictures of a woman masturbating, enlarge one of them, etc. The possibilities are virtually endless.
The web users ability to click her way through the site and its interactive features gives the impression that it actually responds to her inner desire. In this respect, Steven Shaviro explains that the Internet creates what Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari called a haptic space (Shaviro 7), one that, contrary for example to cinema, completely draws its user into it. It is not simply visual for Shaviro, but rather absorbs the entire body into its infinite stream of possibilities:
The Internet does not simply provide services; it assaults our attention with a virtually infinite gamut of options. Every page that the user opens is another invitation to click and select, move forward and backward, wait until the page is downloaded, then quickly read some text, before being once again attracted to an image. The Web absorbs not only its users mental attention, but also her bodily focus, as her entire being becomes enmeshed in the network.
Such a totalizing medium calls for a specific theory of power. The Web, as a cultural and market-oriented medium, definitely strives to give the impression that it can cater to our every wish anywhere, at any given moment. The process of surfing online itself creates the feeling that the user is herself actively selecting the items that can fulfill her every desire. However, this impression of control is just that, an impression, first of all because surfing the Internet is always a frustrating experience; although the network always implicitly purports to be able to fulfill the users wishes, it never quite succeeds. Satisfaction is always promised and always delayed, leaving the surfer both with an uneasy feeling of disappointment and an urge to search harder. Therefore, it cannot just be assumed that since the Web user apparently is selecting what she wants to see, she is also controlling what appears on the screen. In other words, it would be too simplistic to suppose that she is creating the content and the experience of the Internet. Rather, she is swallowed up into a network of predefined possibilities, one that is all the more powerful in that it has already gained her entire bodily as well as mental attention, and has managed to infuse the impression that she is, in fact, controlling the stream of webpages that she is seeing.
Power, then, cannot be defined as a top-to-bottom, vertical structure, but must be thought of along Foucauldian lines, i.e. as a totalized horizontal system in which every agent participates, while simultaneously ensuring its implementation. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault likens the functioning of modern power to that of the Panopticon, a 19th-century surveillance system in French prisons that enabled jailers to look at prisoners at any moment without being seen, thereby making sure that the inmates would police themselves spontaneously and behave according the rules. Shaviro argues that this power has transformed itself with the Internet, and that it is not centralized and rigid anymore, since contemporary social control no longer needs to confine people in order to police their behavior. Rather, power has followed the distributive pattern of the Web and has become flexible, adaptative, slack. Whereas Foucaults prison system is articulated around a central surveillance point, the concentration of the group within a limited space, and the invisibility of the controlling agent, in a totally networked world, where every point communicates directly with every other point, power is no longer faceless and invisible. Instead, it works in plain sight. Its smiley face is always there to greet us (Shaviro 31). And, one might add, its face is pink and blue and whispers sssh
More seriously, these definitions of power and the Internet are useful to sketch out the type of subject linked to sssh.com. Instead of a subject that actively participates in the creation of a site that responds to her every desire, it seems more appropriate to speak of a subject produced by the website and thus by power. By this I do not mean to imply that sssh.com, just by virtue of its existence, radically transforms its users subjectivity. Rather, I want to argue that the normativity of the website, and its entanglement in a network of equally normative sites and cultural artifacts, aims at producing a subject who will police herself spontaneously and so efficiently that she will even come to forget the possibility of dissent. In this Web-dystopia, she will do so all the more unthinkingly that the medium she uses has aborbed her body as well as her mind, and has created the impression that she was a controlling agent rather than a passive subject-in-formation. The sssh.com user is thus integrated, literally body and soul, within a ubiquitous, innocuous-looking, and inviting control system that can be assimilated both to a haptic space and to a contemporary form of the Panopticon-shaped power defined by Foucault.
As has already been noted, the most striking absence on sssh.com centers around rape fantasies. If they are present, it is always in a liminal space, and suffused by a discourse that does not acknowledge the existence of a rape culture. For example, the scenes depicting female bondage are typically accompanied by texts stressing the importance of a healthy relationship with the members sexual and emotional partner. They do not, however, offer an unapologetic and radical appropriation of the desires that tend to shape female sexual subjectivity in a culture that grounds its doxa of sexual exchange in an overpowering of the feminine Other. In this context, it must be stressed that rape fantasies should not be seen as the ultimate form of subjection to phallogocentric discourse, but as a profound manifestation of subversion, for they constitute a radical appropriation of an oppressive discourse.
The woman staging her own rape, or that of another woman or man, trifles constantly with the danger of being re-inscribed within the Lacanian Symbolic order, that of language, which is also that of rape culture: she is at the mercy of being overpowered by guilt, which puts an abrupt end to the fantasy by bringing her back into the real world. However, this usually does not prevent her from masturbating and fantasizing over and over again, turning what has been constructed as the greatest danger in her life into the source of her most intense pleasure. In this sense, her body is grotesque, insolent, and mocking; it has, almost literally, the last laugh. This analogy with laughter makes perceptible the intensity of the resistance entailed in rape fantasies. Mikhail Bakhtin writes that it is precisely laughter that destroys the epic, and in general destroys any hierarchical (distancing and valorizing) distance [it] delivers the object into the fearless hands of investigative experiment both scientific and artistic- and into the hands of free experimental fantasy (Bakhtin 328). The similarities with rape fantasies are evident, as they too abolish fear, distance, and hierarchy in order to let bold imaginary elaborations take over. Far from being traitors to their own kind, women who indulge in rape fantasies disguise themselves and poly-identify; they transform and appropriate a prototypical narrative that inherently dismisses the possibility for them to access power, especially in order to reach sexual satisfaction. Bakhtin qualifies the carnival as a site of insurgency, a potentially apt term to apply to rape fantasies as well. They enable the fantasizing subject to use an oppressive culture over which she has no agency, by a clandestine appropriation of cultural products, i.e. the omnipresence of rape. They form a repeated poaching of a territory that does not belong to the subject and that was not intended to be twisted in such a way.
In this context, the absence of rape fantasies on sssh.com is not a simple, forgivable lack, but an omission with deep political implications. The subject of the website is not only a normative one; she is actually made unaware of the sexual politics that found both her subjectivity and her subjugation. She is deeply, irrevocably non-oppositional; her sweet and willing and smiling face has erased any trace of subversion; she wants to explore her sexuality, but that really means pursuing a polished, moderate, non-extravagant one. In one word, she is the subject of rape culture. Her investigation will and can only take place within a predefined space, sssh.com, the shiny veneer of which masks a crueller reality: the space itself is a product of rape culture, and aims at producing subjects who are not even aware of the sexual politics by which they live and therefore cannot oppose them.
But is that it? Is it enough to call it all a failure? Or is it possible simultaneously to cast a somewhat more forgiving, if not generous, eye on sssh.com? I believe so, for although its project does not acknowledge rape culture with its ramifications and consequences, it does strive to create a (relatively) safe and empowering space, one in which women are encouraged to endorse new identities and engage in new experiences. Although these are very seriously circumscribed within the normative limits outlined above, it seems that within that space there is room for a little experimentation even if that just means a few gesticulations.
The Internet creates an anonymity that seems to be unmatched by any other medium: any woman with an internet connection can, from virtually any location in the world, view porn sites without ever having to suffer the amused grin of a shop dealer, or the embarrassment deriving from her lovers curiosity about her cable package. Even if she shares her computer with other people, she can simply delete the History and leave absolutely no trace of her cyber-sexual peregrinations. Moreover, as several cyber theoreticians have pointed out, the Web makes it possible to experiment with different identities. The most famous case is that of Julie, a chatroom user who purported to be a crippled old lady and who gained the trust of several women: she would listen patiently to all their qualms, and offer some very judicious advice, which led to increasingly intimate confessions. When, after several months, one of the women insisted on meeting on her, Julies actual identity was finally revealed: she was in fact a forty-year old male psychiatrist who was fascinated by the type of conversations women held among themselves (Bell 126). Gender-switching has since become a common feature in chatrooms. One of them, LambdaMOO, offers users a choice among no fewer than ten genders. However, it should be noted that those experiments are bound to be limited in time and space: they constitute a play, not a radical reshaping of the users identity. Judith Butler herself has made it repeatedly clear that her theory of performativity did not imply that gender could be chosen, but that gender played us (Salih and Butler 93).
Sssh.com, as a porn site, does not offer provide the possibility of foregrounding gender-play, but it does supply a similar experimental space with sexual identities: the member can surf around the website and try out different fantasies, some of which she may never have considered before. The S/M section, for instance, does at least have the virtue of existing at all. It seems actually that the most important form of identity-play at stake on sssh.com is the very appropriation of the sexual realm, a realm that is not generally perceived to belong to women. As Gayle Rubin wrote, part of the modern ideology of sex is that lust is the province of men, purity that of women. It is no accident that pornography and the perversions have been considered part of the male domain (33). Therefore, if it is accepted that women should have free and fulfilling sex lives, porn sites explicitly designed for women are necessary, and it is also crucial that they should emphasize the fact that women have the right to watch porn. From this viewpoint, a site like sssh.com is truly empowering: by constantly reminding its members that their enjoyment of pornographic material is legitimate, it does open up new perspectives and possibilities. The fact that the website features homosexual and S/M sex, although not unproblematically, does include these within the realm of recognized and authorized fantasies, which constitutes a positive evolution, broadening as it does womens access to varied sexual experiences and pleasures.
How should we, then, characterize porn for women on the web? As a product that enables women to explore areas some of them would otherwise have left out, or as a dehumanizing tool that drastically limits their sexual perspectives? As an agent of power, or as a text that offers some liberatory perspectives? Janice Radway comes face-to-face with a similar dilemma at the end of Reading the Romance, which treats the joys and dangers of romance fiction. She argues that although the endings of such books systematically present the triumph of a traditional gender model, epitomized in a blissful patriarchal marriage, the major part of the story features an intelligent heroine who refuses to be dominated by a man. Drawing upon Frederic Jamesons article Reification and Utopia, she claims that these texts cannot be read solely in a negative light: they do offer spaces of protest, of self-affirmation, and of independence, which are not simply nullified by the final pages.
A similar statement can be made about porn sites for women, for they do offer their members the possibility of living out their sexual lives in a more fulfilling way: by giving women access to a pornography designed for them, in a tone that invites them to accept their fantasies and to experiment guiltlessly in a realm that has traditionally been reserved for men, websites like sssh.com do to a certain extent accomplish their emancipatory mission. However, the limits put on this experimental space are so strong that they almost completely choke out the free space opened by sssh.com. By relegating rape culture to the limbo of subject-formation, the website creates a sort of artificial and self-contained nucleus of sexual free-play. Therefore, the subject interpellated by sssh.com is an extremely normative one. It is the archtypical female subject of rape culture, i.e., one torn between widely divergent demands: a woman willing to submit herself to sexual experimentation, while at the same time endorsing a non-threatening, polished, middle-class identity reminiscent of the Angel in the House decried by Virginia Woolf. The subject of sssh.com occupies an uncomfortable, schizophrenic space that strives to accommodate these mutually exclusive requirements without being granted access to the radically subversive energy provided by rape fantasies. This subjective interpellation is made all the more efficient by the very medium it uses: the Internet, as a haptic space that draws both the users body and her mind into its matrix, forms one of the most powerful agents of power, for it creates an illusion of mastery while actually anesthetizing the possibility of dissent.
What, then, could form an ethically sustainable and erotically arousing solution? For can it not be said that featuring, for example, images of abuse would simply constitute a deepening of rape culture, as has been suggested earlier in this article? I would answer that the outcome will depend on the context in which they appear: they certainly will and do when their sole purpose is sexual arousal, as is the case on certain male sites. However, these images may also be part of a larger, oppositional discourse that aims at deconstructing sexual power dynamics in Western culture, while understanding that subjectivity cannot simply be changed by waving the magic wand of political will and that rape fantasies are therefore legitimate. In such circumstances, it seems to me that they would not only be admissible, but that their presence would in fact lead to a deep and genuine engagement with the very serious and eminently political questions raised by rape culture.
[1]I have lived and slept in the same bed as English
countesses and Prussian farm women
no woman has excited
more passions among women than I have.
Works Cited


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subset: commoncrawl


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Festivals of Dimasa Kachari tribes of AssamThese people belongs to one of the ancient Kachari tribe which are the primary habitant of the North Cachar Hill district and in some other parts of the state. Like the other tribes, the Dimasa also celebrates their own festivals in their own traditional way. Some of these important festivals can be listed as below:—
- The "Rajini Gabra and Harni Gabra" is one of the known socio-religious festival of Dimasa tribe which is celebrated for once in a year. It is usually celebrated before the new cultivation is being started. This festival commences when the village headman (also known as 'Kunang') tries to appease his family god and proceeds by shutting down the gates of the village on that special day of the performance of Rajini Gabra. The immortal 'Harni' is worshiped at the same day seeking blessings for the wellbeing of all the people of the village for the coming year. The festival is observed inside the village itself and no other people from outside the village is allowed to witness the occasion and if any such people comes to see it, the program is considered to be spoilt.
- The 'Busu' is another major festival that is popular among the Dimasa Kachari tribe which generally implies the harvesting festival that is celebrated by them. It is observed with more fun and merry-making and the whole village is decorated with special artistic arrangements for the occasion. They also design and construct a gate called 'Fangsla' in the entrance of the village to mark the celebration and welcome the festival.
Family system of Dimasa Kachari Tribes of AssamDimasa people make their houses out of a plan floor which is known as Noh-Dima and are located in the bank of a river. Their houses are like that of the common people and has similar structure consisting of a drawing room, sleeping room, kitchen and a granary. Their family system is patrilineal where the father is the head of the family and among them the parallel clan system is available. There are 40 male and 42 female clans that are available among the Dimasa Kachari's which is called as "Sangphong" and "Zaluk" respectively.
The 'Nablai' is the village system of the tribe which means cluster of houses. Like the other tribal people of the state, the Dimasa Kachari has also their own dormitory which is called 'Nodrang' and it is meant for the young unmarried boys of the tribe. The dormitory is used by them as the learning institute where they learns dance and music, arts and crafts and many other such skills. It is guest accommodation where Dimasa and non-Dimasa guests can come and stay there. Usually, the young boys of the tribe stay at night in the Dormitory.


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September 6, 2014 Total Views: 5531 Today: 1 ★★★★
Hotel The W San Diego, Located 11 minutes' walk from Little Italy, this boutique San Diego hotel features a vibrant lounge, restaurant and contemporary art gallery. All contemporary rooms include a fully stocked minibar. A flat-screen HDTV, an oversized desk and an iPod docking station are included in each air-conditioned room at The W San Diego. Decorated in soothing blue and white hues, guest rooms boast free bottled water, Terry Lined Waffle robes and Bliss spa products. Guests can enjoy a snack from the Munchie Box or order 24-hour gourmet in-room dining. All eco-friendly rooms can accommodate pets. KELVIN restaurant at the W San Diego serves world cuisine with a Latin influence for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Featuring a sculpture of stacked beach chairs used for a nightly bonfire, guests can take in city views and a late night drink at the ROOFTOP bar. The hotel's Living Room offers a unique bar serving signature cocktails and snacks and has DJs and games for evening entertainment. The bar also provides free WiFi access. The W San Diego features WET, an outdoor heated pool, and FIT, a 24-hour open-air fitness centre. FIT offers treadmills and elliptical machines along with complimentary spring water and lemon-scented towelettes. Guests can use the hotel's helpful whatever/whenever service for sporting events tickets, transport and dinner reservations. Serving award winning beer and food, Karl Strauss Brewing Company is less than 1 minutes' walk away from this hotel. San Diego's lively Gaslamp Quarter is 1 km away and San Diego Convention Center is 1.6 km away. San Diego International Airport is 3.3 km away. (Hotel The W San Diego hotels booking).


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When Newt Gingrich said he'd like to find a way for illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for more than 25 years to stay in the country, just how many people was the GOP presidential candidate talking about?
The Pew Hispanic Center tried to put a number to it today in a study that analyzes Census Bureau data along with what it calls other "demographic characteristics."
The center says this about the estimated 10.2 million illegal adult immigrants:
Gingrich, the current front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, caused a stir at the most recent debate when he advocated a "humane" way to deal with the nation's illegal immigrants.
Although rivals such as Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney say the former House speaker is advocating amnesty, Gingrich is clear that he doesn't want an automatic path to legal status or American citizenship.
Gingrich says he believes his approach is pro-family. Here's what he said:
If you've been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you've been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church, I don't think we're going to separate you from your family, uproot you forcefully and kick you out.
Hence, the Pew Hispanic Center's look at length of stay, family status and churchgoing habits. Although the Pew numbers for length of duration don't exactly match Gingrich's remark, millions of illegal immigrants would benefit.
Gingrich has stuck by his comments from the Nov. 22 debate. He has advocated other immigration proposals that are more in line with GOP conservatives, such as requiring English to be the official language of the United States.
Gingrich also recently said on Fox News that he would cut off federal funding for any city or state that offered sanctuary to illegal immigrants, and voiced his support for a new law in South Carolina that would require police officers to check the immigration status of people they stop or detain.
Catalina Camia leads the OnPolitics online community and has been at USA TODAY since 2005. She has been a reporter or editor covering politics and Congress for two decades, including stints at The Dallas Morning News and Congressional Quarterly. Follow her at @USATOnPolitics.
USA TODAY's Jackie Kucinich (@jfkucinich) and Fredreka Schouten (@fschouten) also contribute to the OnPolitics blog.


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|Message view
|« Date » · « Thread »
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|Grant Ingersoll <gsing...@apache.org>
|Re: modularization discussion
|Mon, 02 May 2011 22:11:44 GMT
On Apr 27, 2011, at 11:45 PM, Greg Stein wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 09:25:14AM -0400, Yonik Seeley wrote: >> ... >> But as I said... it seems only fair to meet half way and use the solr namespace >> for some modules and the lucene namespace for others. > > Please explain this part to me... I really don't understand. At the risk of speaking for someone else, I think it has to do w/ wanting to maintain brand awareness for Solr. We, as the PMC, currently produce two products: Apache Lucene and Apache Solr. I believe Yonik's concern is that if everything is just labeled Lucene, then Solr is just seen as a very thin shell around Lucene (which, IMO, would still not be the case, since wiring together a server app like Solr is non-trivial, but that is my opinion and I'm not sure if Yonik share's it). Solr has never been a thin shell around Lucene and never will be. However, In some ways, this gets at why I believe Yonik was interested in a Solr TLP: so that Solr could stand on it's own as a brand and as a first class Apache product steered by a PMC that is aligned solely w/ producing the Solr (i.e. as a TLP) product as opposed to the two products we produce now. (Note, my vote on such a TLP was -1, so please don't confuse me as arguing for the point, I'm just trying to, hopefully, explain it) That being said, 99% of consumers of Solr never even know what is in the underlying namespace b/c they only ever interact w/ Solr via HTTP (which has solr in the namespace by default) at the server API level, so at least in my mind, I don't care what the namespace used underneath is. Call it lusolr for all I care. > > What does "fairness" have to do with the codebase? I can't speak to this, but perhaps it's just the wrong choice of words and would have been better said: please don't take this as a reason to gut Solr and call everything Lucene. > Isn't the whole > point of the Lucene project to create the best code possible, for the > benefit of our worldwide users? It is. We do that primarily through the release of two products: Lucene and Solr. Lucene is a Java class library. A good deal of programming is required to create anything meaningful in terms of a production ready search server. Solr is a server that takes and makes most things that are programming tasks in Lucene configuration tasks as well as adds a fair bit of functionality (distributed search, replication, faceting, auto-suggest, etc.) and is thus that much easier to put in production (I've seen people be in production on Solr in a matter of days/weeks, I've never seen that in Lucene) The crux of this debate is whether these additional pieces are better served as modules (I think they are) or tightly coupled inside of Solr (which does have a few benefits from a dev. point of view, even though I firmly believe they are outweighed by the positives of modularization.) And, while I think most of us agree that modularization makes sense, that doesn't mean there aren't reasons against it. I also believe we need to take it on a case by case basis. I also don't think every patch has to be in it's final place on first commit. As Otis so often says, it's just software. If it doesn't work, change it. Thus, if people contribute and it lands in Solr, the committer who commits it need not immediately move it (although, hopefully they will) or ask the contributor to do so, as that will likely dampen contributions. Likewise for Lucene. Along with that, if and when others wish to refactor, then they should by all means be allowed to do so assuming of course, all tests across both products still pass. In short, I believe people should still contribute where they see they can add the most value and according to their time schedules. Additionally, others who have more time or the ability to refactor for reusability should be free to do so as well. I don't know what the outcome of this thread should be, so I guess we need to just move forward and keep coding away and working to make things better. Do others see anything broader here? A vote? That would be symbolic, I guess, but doesn't force anyone to do anything since there isn't a specific issue at hand other than a broad concept that is seen as "good". -Grant --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com For additional commands, e-mail: email@example.com
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Lawsuit Accuses Bose Headphones of Spying on Us
Sometimes apps enhance products, but sometimes they also unlock access to a user's private activity. (Remember those vibrators?)
A lawsuit filed in Chicago Tuesday alleges that headphone maker Bose is doing just that with its Bose Connect app—spying on its consumers' listening habits and gathering data it then provides to third parties without user consent, reports Fortune.
The wireless headphones at issue retail for up to $350, and lead plaintiff Kyle Zak says that in taking the company's advice to "get the most out of your headphones," he download the companion app—but ended up providing much more than his name, number, and email address. He argues that Bose is violating the WireTap Act, and while damages are not specified, the complaint alleges "the amount in controversy exceeds $5,000,000."


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Don't call William Maclay, the venerable Waitsfield architect who came to the Green Mountain State more than 40 years ago from the University of Pennsylvania, and whose firm just won two awards for excellence in Vermont architecture, a dinosaur. Call him a dimetrodon.
Well, okay — a dimetrodon is a dinosaur — or, more precisely, a pelycosaur, which actually preceded the dinosaur by a few million years. But the issue is not just paleontology but also beauty and efficiency – or, more precisely, energy efficiency.
Dimetrodons each had a big, spiny sail-like fin on their backs that some experts think were used for heating and cooling. Maclay does not resemble such a creature, but wouldn't it be grand if a Vermont building looked and worked like that? If Maclay's firm designed such a building, wouldn't you want it to get an award for excellence in architecture from the Vermont chapter of the American Institute of Architects?
Well, that's what happened. Sort of.
The 2010 edition of the Vermont AIA awards was just concluded and Maclay Architects bagged two of the three honor awards. In both instances, the jurors (a panel of disinterested architects from Massachusetts) looked with favor on so-called "net zero" buildings – projects that are not just sustainable and energy efficient but literally produce at least as much energy as they consume.
The two projects in question are a new field house at the Putney School and a private residence on the Mad River in Moretown, known as the River House. Each is not just sustainable but graceful – even beautiful.
As Wordsworth said, whither is fled the visionary gleam? Or, to paraphrase Danny Sagan, whatever happened to buildings that take us to a place we have never been before?
But – dang. Neither is unprecedented; neither attempts to change the people who live or work within it, and neither sports anything sufficiently outrageous as to merit comparison to that big fin that heats and cools.
For that you have to check out a sprawling and startling structure that Maclay began 40 years ago in Warren along with fellow architects Jim Sanford and Richard Travers, later joined by Sucosh Norton, Ellen Strauss and Hito Coleman. It was called – not surprisingly – Dimetrodon.
You can read all about Dimetrodon in Architectural Improvisation: A History of Vermont's Design/Build Movement 1964-1977, published by the University of Vermont Press in 2008 to commemorate the exhibition of the same name at the university's Fleming Museum. As described by the exhibit's curator, Danny Sagan, Dimetrodon was "designed as a series of giant parallel box-beam trusses" and was "organized around the concept that residents would receive services such as sewer, water, electricity, and heat, and construct their own dwelling in the space between the box beams." It thus was, as Sagan notes, an early experiment in cohousing – an idea that did not take off in the United States until fully a decade and a half after Maclay, Sanford and Travers started building those giant trusses in Warren.
At least as of the date of Sagan's essay about this and other Vermont projects of that era, Dimetrodon is still there. It is still home to five co-dwelling households, though the small wind turbine at the spire is long gone.
The point in mentioning it here is not so much to celebrate this achievement in 1970s design, or the fact that it arose out of a genuine and distinctively Vermont architectural movement that was started by the outlandish designer David Sellers, came to be housed at the non-residential Goddard College, and which endures today at the Yestermorrow Design-Build School in Warren. The point is not to suggest there was, and is, something ineffably noble and right about design-build architecture – the notion that the designers actually help build the thing rather than staying in a cubicle somewhere issuing directives to people who actually know how to construct things.
Rather, the point is more simple. As Wordsworth said, whither is fled the visionary gleam? Or, to paraphrase Danny Sagan, whatever happened to buildings that take us to a place we have never been before?
Vermont has long had distinctive architecture, in contrast to New Hampshire where the closest thing to cutting-edge design would be a bas relief by Augustus Saint Gaudens (who died in 1907, though you can still visit his place in Cornish). The design builders who invaded the Mad River Valley in the 1970s were really just following the Vermont tradition of innovation and adaptation that gave the Vermont landscape such archetypal structures as the monitor barn and the connected farm house.
The Putney School's field house is an endearing physical presence, but so is an old-fashioned bowling alley, which it resembles. Memo to Maclay and his client: Don't write me to complain about this.
The Putney School's field house is an endearing physical presence, but so is an old-fashioned bowling alley, which it resembles. Memo to Maclay and his client: Don't write me to complain about this. Let's stipulate that the architects have done a fine job of fitting the bowling alley archetype into the unique setting of the Putney School, which was originally just a farm and is now a farm and private secondary school. Let's also stipulate that by commissioning its award-winning new field house the Putney School perpetuates a deserved reputation as, dollar-for-dollar, the most enlightened institutional client in Vermont. The school's Currier Center for the Performing Arts, designed by the renowned Boston-area architect Charles Rose, is the best non-residential building in Vermont so far this century. Completed in 2004, it went unnoticed by the Vermont AIA awards because it is the work of an out-of-state architect.
Let's also stipulate that a truly beautiful aspect of the Field House project was on vivid display in the latest issue of the school's magazine for alumni and friends. It is a negative energy bill – i.e., a net payment, since Vermont law allows such things – that the Putney School received in connection with the building. That the Putney School is able to pull off stuff like this without wrecking the stark and distinctive character of its farm-centered campus is worthy of an architectural lifetime achievement award.
Residential projects are harder to assess because they are, by definition, private. But from the pictures available on the Maclay Architects web site one can readily ascertain that the River House is money well-spent by its owners. Stone that came directly from the site is the dominant material, the roof is covered in sedum (a flowering plant), and inside there is timber framing of lavish (but decidedly un-Vermont) Douglas fir. An array of photovoltaics is separate from the house itself – a choice that presumably made the home more comfortably beautiful (by avoiding the siting constraints solar panels impose) but also an approach that suggests a small bit of cheating on the net-zero claim insofar as much of the energy production is technically not coming from the house itself.
This is not a historicist dwelling but neither is it unfamiliar in its overall form and look to those who read architectural magazines and know about famous non-Vermont designers like James Cutler or, indeed, the aforementioned Charles Rose. Familiarity should not necessarily breed awards.
That excellence was equated almost entirely with virtue by the Vermont AIA jury this time around is confirmed by the third honor award, to Gossens Bachman Architects for its Union Square project, a renovation of what was once known as the NAMCO Block, in Windsor. This iconic early 1920s structure and its undulating brick façade were something of a notorious icon in the former mill town, where it had become (not to put too fine a point on it) a giant (as in 85,000 square foot) slum. Originally built as worker housing, the place was rehabbed in 1989 as a low-income housing project known as Armory Square. Now the place is beautiful again as well as energy efficient. The 72 units have been pared to 58.
With apologies to Gossens Bachman, if there is truly excellence here (as distinct from a deft and competent redesign and rehabilitation of a 90-year-old building) the award should go to Senator Patrick Leahy.
With apologies to Gossens Bachman, if there is truly excellence here (as distinct from a deft and competent redesign and rehabilitation of a 90-year-old building) the award should go to Senator Patrick Leahy (who procured a federal grant for the project), NeighborWorks America (which provided below-market financing through a Vermont affiliate, the Rockingham Area Community Land Trust), Housing Vermont (a participating developer of low-income housing), all of the state's electric customers (who helped pay for weatherization and other energy efficiency measures through Efficiency Vermont), and perhaps others whose contributions cannot be readily ascertained.
The award to Union Square raises the question of what would truly be design excellence in this context. At least a tentative answer would be: A project that manages to persuade not just low-income Vermonters (through economic necessity) but Vermonters from all non-agricultural walks of life that apartment living in village or urban settings is far more responsible, and far more likely to preserve the Vermont rural character we all say we want to preserve, than hiring Maclay Architects or Gossens Bachman to design a sumptuous residence on many acres of land, however well those two firms can execute such projects.
In other words, Vermont, those who design its buildings, and those who bestow awards on those designs, need to reach back to rediscover the time, epitomized by projects like the Dimetrodon, when the task of architecture, as Alain de Botton suggested in The Architecture of Happiness, was "to render vivid to us who we might ideally be." Otherwise, we risk just honoring dinosaurs.
Donald M. Kries is an associate director of the Institute of Energy and the Environment at the Vermont Law School.


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Hey all,
Got two probs with my 6.1 machine
1. I am unable to run linuxconf. If I try to invoke it from gnome (or any gui), absolutely nothing happens. If I try to invoke from a prompt, I get a "segmentation fault, core dump" error. I've done a re-install by choosing the upgrade option, no change. It worked fine before. I moved from one apartment to another, fired it up, and it's never worked since. The system is basically useless now because I am a newbie and not entirely comfortable editing all the required files by hand. I have alot of SAMBA work to do on it, as well as configuring it for DSL access.
2. Whenever I choose shutdown & halt, it generates about a screen and a half of rubbish and just hangs there after it shuts down all the services and processes, and will not power down on its own.
I know I could just wipe and start over, there's not much stuff on it yet. But that doesn't teach me anything, and I do want to learn how to fix it when it breaks.
Any help will be appreciated,


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Washington D.C., Feb 1, 2013 / 12:28 am (CNA).- News that the Boy Scouts of America may soon approve of openly gay members and leaders has sparked a wave of concern and criticism throughout the country.Eagle Scout Andrew Hill, who lives in Philadelphia, said that he is "disappointed" that the organization's leadership appears to have "caved to external demands.""The Boy Scouts are now just another organization or public figure that has given in to … [Read more...]
Archives for February 1, 2013
Possible lift of Boy Scouts' gay ban draws disappointment
LA archbishop relieves Cardinal Mahony of duties, asks prayers for abuse victims
Los Angeles, Calif., Jan 31, 2013 / 11:05 pm (CNA).- Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez has relieved retired Cardinal Roger Mahony of his remaining duties after the release of personnel files of priests accused of sexual abuse decades ago. "We need to acknowledge that terrible failure today. We need to pray for everyone who has ever been hurt by members of the Church," the archbishop said in a Jan. 31 statement. "And we need to continue to support the long and … [Read more...]
Pro-lifers urge new Secretary of State to support human rights
Washington D.C., Jan 31, 2013 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As Senator John Kerry is confirmed as Secretary of State for Obama's second administration, pro-life groups have encouraged the official to protect human rights, especially for the unborn. "International diplomacy with a central focus on the dignity of the human person will bear tremendous fruit in building a more loving, healthier and more stable world," Jeanne Monahan, president of March for Life, told CNA Jan. … [Read more...]


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The police has released CCTV of a man they would like to speak to in connection with a theft that happened in Harpenden.
Three bottles of Grey Goose vodka and one bottle of Citron were stolen on Monday February 10 at 6.45pm in Sainsburys on the High Street.
Hertfordshire Constabulary would like to speak to the man pictured. It may be that he witnessed the incident and could help with the investigation.
Anyone with information is asked to contact PCSO Del Holloway on the non-emergency number 101 quoting crime reference number F2/14/192. Alternatively call Crimestoppers, the independent charity, anonymously on 0800 555 111.


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The war of words between Michigan's Fab Five and the stars of Duke's 1991-1992 NCAA championship teams could continue. Ex-Duke star Grant Hill is writing an editorial for the New York Times in which he fires back at Jalen Rose, Jimmy King and other Wolverines for dissing him and former teammates Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley in the ESPN Films documentary The Fab Five, according to SportsbyBrooks.com.
In the documentary, Rose, the former Fab Five leader-turned ESPN analyst, accuses the Blue Devils of preferring to recruit "Uncle Tom" African-American athletes. King says he thought Hill was a "b----." Hill, now with the Phoenix Suns, is in his 16th season in the NBA.
Hurley previously responded to Dan Patrick by noting Duke was 3-0 against the Fab Five. He said Rose would have been a benchwarmer if he played for Coach K. Here's video of the Fab Fivers taking potshots at Laettner and Hill:
Here's Rose saying he was "jealous" of Hill's middle-class upbringing:
Reid Cherner has been with USA TODAY since 1982 and written Game On! since March 2008.
He has covered everything from high schools to horse racing to the college and the pros. The only thing he likes more than his own voice is the sound of readers telling him when he's right and wrong.
Michael Hiestand has covered sports media and marketing for USA TODAY, tackling the sports biz ranging from what's behind mega-events such as the Olympics and Super Bowl to the sometimes-hidden numbers behind the sports world's bottom line.


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I'm trying to get some good pictures but they always come out crappy. My wife is getting sick of chasing me down the beach for mediocre pics. We have a 10 megapixel canon digital camera. Nothing super fancy but it should get the job done. Does anyone know of or use any certain settings on their cameras to get good surfing pictures? Or a way to teach the ol lady to take better pictures?
Results 1 to 3 of 3
Sep 17, 2010, 12:51 PM #1Member
- Join Date
- Jul 2010
- Location
- New Smyrna Beach
- Posts
- 33
Any tips for photog with digital camera


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People would have certainly opened you tube to check out different collection. They must have certainly noticed the videos on the first page having umpteen of views. It is possible for all the people to also get thousands of youtube comments rating. People who make good earnings online get their videos demonstrated on the first page of you tube.
People would have got these rating within an hour of uploading the videos. People who have earned good lots of money online have always had their videos on the first page of Google and you tube. They do not make handsome money because they upload amazing pictures but because it is a combination of all.
Most of the times they are on the front page because they always get five star ratings. They have many positive comments of their video. But the main reason for being on the front page is their video has large numbers people who view it.
Even the best video the users will find it difficult on the front page of you tube. They have to find out other ways to make it happen. One of the best ways is to fill the video with positive comments and about 5k views and they would require software which the other professionals use.
There is software which is available online it helps in increasing the people's video views to their heart's content. People can five star ratings and also comment greatly and laud their own videos.
People who are serious on making money online through video marketing it is time now to do the right thing imitate the others what they have been doing and fetch the percentage of success.
By visiting as many websites possible people can learn more on how to earn money online by uploading pictures on you tube and gathering high numbers of followers.


text: if ford uses the 3 valves per cylinder on the new gt's, will we be able to use these heads and intake on out 96-04 gt's. i'm sure there will be issues with the timing chain because of the different cams and everything, but this would be nice. probably like 30 hp from new heads.


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Bosco, João
From Astro-Databank
|born on
|13 July 1946 at 05:00 (= 05:00 AM )
|Ponte Nova, Brazil, 20s24, 42w54
|BZT h3w (is standard time)
|Data source
|Astrology data
|20°19' 08°28 Asc. 28°33'
Brazilian great composer, singer and acoustic guitar player.
Source Notes
Marcello Borges quotes Dione Forti who asked the data from guests on her radio show. Marcello Borges writes that "He uses a guitar made by a Japanese luthier, same as mine; once I was visiting the luthier's studio and he pointed to an instrument being refurbished and said, 'this is the guitar João Bosco uses', and as you may have guessed, I had the honour to play a bit with it."
- Vocation : Entertain/Music : Composer/ Arranger (Noted composer)
- Vocation : Entertain/Music : Vocalist/ Pop, Rock, etc.
- Vocation : Entertain/Music : Instrumentalist (Acoustic guitar)


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Mark Wahlberg is a married man
Mark Wahlberg and his longtime girlfriend Rhea Durham tied the knot yesterday, according to People:
The couple, who have three children – Ella Rae, 5, Michael, 3, and 10-month-old Brendan Joseph – were married Saturday in an intimate and romantic ceremony attended by their children and about 12 close friends and family at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills.
As for adding more children to their brood? "I'm the youngest of nine," Wahlberg said, adding that the final count will be "however many Mom wants to have."
In related news, Rhea Durham's vagina was last seen jumping on the wing of a plane headed to Mexico…


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Results 6-6-14
Three Fayette County student-athletes wrapped up this season track and field season earlier today at Jesse Owens Stadium at The Ohio State University.
Washington Court House's Trevor Mustard making his third straight appearance at the state meet in the Division 2 shot put finished 10th overall with a best toss of 53 feet 3 3/4 inches. Trevor was district and regional runner up this season. He graduated a few days ago from Washington Court House. Trevor was 5th last year and 12th two years ago.
Tori Merritt joined her sister Courtney in appearing at the state meet for the Lady Lions program. Tori finished 16th in the high jump going at 4-8. Winner was at 5-8. Tori is also a graduate of Washington. Older sister Courtney was a part of a Blue Lions relay state qualifier team several years ago.
Miami Trace Ashlei Benetiz finished 13th in the girls discus. Ashlei best toss was 114-8 inches. She a junior for Lady Panthers
A total of 10 student-athletes from 4 SCOL schools are at this year state meet.
The Washington CH 4 x 400 meter relay team has qualified for Saturday afternoon finals after finishing 5th in their heat and 9th overall in Friday's qualifying heat.
The top two teams in each of the 2 qualifying heats along with the next 5 best times go to the state finals in the relay events.
The Lady Lions team is made up of juniors Molly Richards & Morgan Harper, sophomore Alexis Gray and freshman Kynzie Osbourne. Morgan by the way has been on a state qualifying relay team for the Lady Lions three years in a row.
For Coach Louis Reid this is the 4th year in a row that at least one of his Lady Lions relay teams have qualified for the state but it's the first time making in the finals. The ladies will race Saturday at 3:05pm.
Caleb Wilt of Miami Trace also will return Saturday in the 300 meter hurdle finals after finishing 5th overall & 3rd in his heat Friday afternoon. Wilt who qualified at the state last year in the 110 ran Friday heat in 38.95 seconds.
Besides those mention above there are two more SCOL female student-athletes would will participate in the state finals on Saturday.
In Division 1 Chillicothe's Tanea Cousins will go at 3pm in the long jump.
Greenfield McClain's Tara Karnes will be in the Division 2 Shot Put that starts at 9am.


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Use our website's state-of-the-art search to encounter members who match your requirements. Or just flip through listings and encounter folks that take your fancy.
Discovered someone who ticks all the boxes? Send them a message or just a wink and wait for their response. With a little luck you'll be on your way to a once in a lifetime experience.
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Psy's New "Gentleman" Video: Ridiculous Dancing & A-hole Behavior
Granted, I can't understand what Korean pop star Psy is singing about in his new song "Gentleman," his follow up to "Gangnam Style." But his behavior in this video is anything but gentlemanly: he rips off a woman's bikini top, pulls a chair out from underneath another, and acts like a general asshole towards women until one shows him that she's his equal, I suppose, by being a jerk right back. The premise of the video, as well as the dancing, is pretty ridiculous. But then again, I suppose ridiculousness is Psy's thing? [YouTube]


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Balloon Boy's Mother Admits to Hoax!
It looks like Balloon Boy's mother has admitted what everyone has suspected all along: That the October 15 panic over six-year-old Falcon Heene was a staged publicity stunt.
Mayumi and Richard Heene garnered worldwide attention when they claimed that Falcon was trapped in a 20-foot Mylar balloon that had been inadvertently released and was flying high above Colorado. (The boy was eventually found in the attic of the family's garage.)
But now People magazine reports that Mayumi has admitted in an affidavit sworn out by sheriff's investigator Robert Heffernan that they knew all along that Falcon was not aboard the balloon, and that the balloon's release was a staged event to make the Heenes "more marketable for future media interest." (The family had previously been on an episode of the reality series Wife Swap, and Richard had reportedly been cooking up schemes for future reality shows.)
Mayumi further admitted that "she and Richard had instructed their three children to lie to authorities as well as the media regarding this hoax."
Denver defense attorney Scott Robinson—who's not involved with the case—says that Mayumi's confession is not likely to affect any possible case brought against her husband:
"If Mayumi's confession was lawfully obtained, it is conclusive evidence against her, but it cannot be used against him, nor can she testify against him without his consent."
Robinson also adds that Richard Heene's legal fate is still "up in the air."
Very funny, buddy. Very funny.
Tell us in the comments section: Are you surprised by Mayumi Heene's confession?


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Whitney Houston's Toxicology & Autopsy Report Released: 'White Crystal-Like Substance Found'
In the 42-page document, it is reported that a "spoon with a white crystal-like substance on it" and a "white powdery substance" — later tested for cocaine — were found in the suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Other developments include:
- A Beverly Hills Police Department detective said he found a "small spoon with a white, crystal-like substance in it and a rolled up piece of white paper."
- He also said, "located in the top drawer … were remnants of a white powdery substance and a portable mirror on a base."
- First responders found Houston, 48, "lying supine on the floor in the central portion of the living room floor." Earlier, she had been pulled out of the bathtub by an assistant and bodyguard who found her "face down" in the water.
- Evidence collected from the scene included a "plethora of prescription medication bottles, prescribed to the decedent, multiple blister packs and a loose tablet." Other medication bottles and loose tablets were also collected.
- Toxicology testing showed cocaine, benzoylecgonine , cocaethylene, marijuana, alprazolam (Xanax), cyclobenzaprine (Flexeril), and diphenhydramine (Benadryl).
- During the autopsy, it was discovered that she had perforated nasal septum.
- The autopsy showed atherosclerotic heart disease (a condition in which plaque builds up inside the arteries).
See the full report below:
The death was classified as an accidental drowning — with no foul play suspected — though atherosclerotic heart disease and cocaine use were listed as contributing factors.
In a recent interview, the diva's mother blasted media reports that her daughter died broke.
"Whitney did not die broke. She's not broke. She's not anything … None of that crap," Cissy Houston said in an exclusive interview on My9′s The 10 O'Clock News, that aired Monday.
"They think they know everything," she said, referring to the tabloids. "These people don't know anything about her. The media doesn't know what they are talking about."


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October 30, 2007 at 20:38:51 Oct 30, 2007 @ 20:38
yeah dude ur so hip
post pics let evryone see how dope you are
look at the what did you wear today thread, look at my post count, people know me now get your wack ass outta here
im sure you'll be excepted in the lil wayne forum somewhere
u like hollister
post up some of your gear dude
give evryone a good look on how dope you are
u posted Chei's shoes
you have no fuckin shame
i cant BEILIEVE sunk so low
to post other peoples fuckin shoes
so wack dude
ur fuckin wack dude
i'm done talking to you
Since I didn't get a response from an email I sent to St. Alfred's about directions, I thought I'd hit y'all up. I'll be in Chicago next weekend. I'm staying at the Majestic on Bromont near Wrigley Field. How do I get to St. Alfred's from there using public transportation. Thanks.


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King, 27, has scored 11 goals this season for the Championship side who are bidding for a return to the Premier League after relegation last term.
"He is our leading goalscorer and one of the leaders of our team and we have no need to sell him," said Watford chief executive Mark Ashton.
But Fulham manager Roy Hodgson could increase the offer after being told he has money available to spend.
"The chairman is very supportive. He wants the club to stay in the Premier League," Hodgson said.
"We don't have a limitation in that we can only spend a certain amount of money or sign a certain number of players. It's up to our judgement."
Fulham are currently second from bottom of the Premier League with strikers David Healy and Diomansy Kamara, both signed by Hodgson's predecessor Lawrie Sanchez, having scored eight times between them this season.
King has limited Premier League experience and missed the majority of last season through injury scoring four goals in only 13 league appearances.
What are these?


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Nearly nine full months after the release of Mass Effect 3, and the subsequent "ending controversy," BioWare is set to deliver the second post-launch single player DLC. Fans will remember that "From Ashes," which saw Shepard recover a long-hibernating Prothean ally, was offered alongside the game's launch back in March while "Leviathan," a mission to find a mysterious reaper-killer, released on August 28th. The Mass Effect 3 "Extended Cut" merely fleshed-out the game's endings with only minor tweaks to actual gameplay.
In "Omega," Shepard teams with infamous Asari gangster Aria T'Loak to liberate fan-favorie Mass Effect 2 locale Omgea from Cerberus control.
"Omega" isn't positioned to offer as much intriguing insight into the larger Mass Effect universe as "From Ashes" (which gave players a look at the final days of the Protheans) and "Leviathan" (which added an extra layer to the Reaper origins); however, there's no doubt that returning characters like Aria and an intriguing new party member, Nyreen Kandros, a female Turian warrior, set in one of the series' most compelling (and shady) locales should make for a worthy detour.
As we predicted a long time ago, prior to the announcement of the "Retaliation" DLC pack, the trailer also brings a new enemy type to Mass Effect 3 single player. While fans might first mistake the new enemy as a variation of either the Collector Scion or Reaper Cannibal, the creature is actually a twisted Cerberus-controlled Reaper, known as the Adjutant. In the Mass Effect comics, the Adjutant are husk-like creatures with the capability of "infecting" other organisms with Reaper technology.
Exactly how the enemies will factor into the "Omega" DLC is unclear – as is how BioWare intends to use their powers to mixup the gameplay and provide fresh surprises in the DLC offering. Maybe the Illusive Man provided the chapter's primary antagonist, Oleg Petrovsky, with the Adjutant in order to capture and secure Omega? Regardless, there's no doubt that when Shepard discovers Adjutant on Omega, he'll be even more motivated to purge the place of Cerberus and Reaper control.
Players should plan on leaving their regular teammates aboard the Normandy, as both Aria and Nyreen act as squad members for the Omega DLC storyline. At this point it's unclear whether or not either character can be recruited as a permanent squadmate once the DLC is complete – though the "romantic" moment between Aria and Shepard seems to hint that the gangster could join the Commander's entourage. Either way players won't walk away empty-handed – with plenty of loot to grab during the mission (an Assault Rifle Thermal Scope and Shotgun Omni-Blade, among other weapon mods).
"Omega" certainly sounds poised to be an action-packed DLC story expansion with a number of fresh and compelling ties to the larger Mass Effect universe. It might not be the most exciting DLC entry in the series but "Omega" should be a fun diversion with plenty of fan service included. Stay tuned to GameRant for our review of the DLC as well as details on future Mass Effect 3 add-on installments.
"Omega" will be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 version of the game for $15. Despite Nintendo marketing the Mass Effect 3 Special Edition as the "definitive" experience, there are currently no plans for a Wii U "Omega" release.
Follow me on Twitter @benkendrick.
The Mass Effect 3 "Omega" DLC will be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 version of the game for $15.
Source: IGN


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The financial sector may seem the last place to look for opportunities as another economic crisis threatens to break. But a handful of stocks in the sector are surprisingly well positioned to benefit from continuing market turmoil.
Conventional wisdom suggests diversified financial stocks are a leveraged bet on the sharemarket.
When markets are healthy and flows increase, fees for everything rise– ranging from brokerage, to managing assets.
Conversely, when markets are weak and volumes dry up, it can get ugly –and quickly.
The performance of many stocks in the sector this year does little to disabuse investors of this notion.
Perpetual has tumbled 21 per cent over the past year, IOOF Holdings is down 31 per cent, Macquarie Group 36 per cent and Computershare is 24 per cent lower.
But one stock that has managed to hold up surprisingly well is Challenger Financial Group.
The stock is down about 3 per cent this year, but over the past year, it is still up more than 30 per cent.
And with its track record of earnings growth and its willingness to return cash to shareholders, analysts are optimistic about its ability to weather the sharemarket storm.
"Challenger has the least leverage to equity markets and likely the most leverage to the cautious and frugal consumer sentiment now prevailing," Citigroup analyst Nigel Pittaway explained in a recent note to clients. Challenger is the market leader and enjoys first-mover status in annuities – a corner of the financial services landscape that is woefully underdeveloped in this country.
As anyone who has seen its ads (featuring retirees whose post-work plans were ruined by the plunge in equity markets during the global financial crisis) will appreciate, Challenger has pitted its annuity business directly against the equity culture that dominated investing in Australia.
The reliable and defensive income streams that annuities offer have proved popular with retirees, helping Challenger to set a record half-year profit of $120 million in February.
Mr Pittaway expects the momentum in the business to be maintained and believes the company will meet or exceed its full-year annuity sales guidance of $1.4 billion. He tips a full-year net profit of $246 million.
Shares of ASX Ltd have performed less admirably this year, falling 23 per cent. But over the past year, they are still up 4.7 per cent.
Weakness has been driven, at least in part, by fears about the arrival of competition in the form of Chi-X, which is set to make its debut in October.
"The stock has probably been held back by concerns about competition but in our mind that is overdone. We think ASX will be a beneficiary of increased volumes even if they don't capture 100 per cent of them," said Arnhem Investment Management portfolio manager Mark Nathan.
Last week, ASX chief executive Robert Elstone told investors he "loves" market volatility, which benefits the exchange operator's bottom line.
Mr Nathan said volatility has helped drive growth in ASX's derivatives business, which has more than offset weakness in retail volumes in cash equity markets.
While many market watchers have focused on flaccid equity markets, seismic shifts in interest-rate markets, which caught most market participants off-guard, have boosted volumes in ASX's interest rate derivatives.
Investors had been betting via futures markets that interest rates would increase this year, taking their cue from the Reserve Bank's tough talk.
With global growth expectations declining dramatically and the local economy looking alarmingly weak, those bets have proved wrong as expectations that the next move in rates will be down have risen.
"Interest rate products are by far the biggest driver of the Sydney Futures Exchange," Mr Nathan said.
This has resulted in a massive increase in volumes for ASX's interest rate derivative contracts which is likely to persist for coming months.
In June, its four main products (30-day cash rate, 90-day bank bill, and three-year and 10-year government bond futures) hit a daily average record of 525,536 contracts.
The ASX is also set to launch volatility products similar to the Chicago Board Options Exchange's Volaility Index this year, which could offer it another avenue to profit directly from the sharemarket's malaise.
The Australian Financial Review


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NFIB - Bounce Off The Bottom
The National Federation of Independent Business released their Small Business survey today which showed a small gain from 90.2 to 92.
"After so many months of pessimism, November's modest gain made it feel like spring, again," said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. Bill is right as the last time that the index was at this level was in March of this year. However, it still remains below where it was in January or February.
"Still, our current reality is still very much the ongoing economic winter. November's reading is still well below the average reading prior to 2008 levels from previous recoveries."
According the November's survey, the percent of owners reporting "poor sales" as the top problem remained stubbornly high at 25 percent followed by 19 percent reporting both taxes and regulations. These concerns do not provide confidence for employers to expand, hire and manufacturer other than just enough to meet demand. This in turn keeps a lid on economic growth as consumers need jobs first so that they can produce something in order to get paid. Then, and only then, can consumption increase and create lasting organic economic growth.
This was reflected in the release: "The net percent of owners expecting better business conditions in six months was a negative 12 percent, 4 points better than October, but still 22 percentage points below January's reading."
Mind the gap!
The following article is from one of our external contributors. It does not represent the opinion of Benzinga and has not been edited.


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DPS Dealing With a Second 'Body Cavity Search' Controversy
It looks like Texas taxpayers are going to have to write another check, because a DPS Trooper couldn't keep her hands where they belong, 1200 WOAI news reports.
A lawsuit filed in Houston claims two women who were driving home from the beach on Memorial Day of 2012 when they were pulled over for a routine traffic stop.
The lawsuit claims Trooper Nathaniel Turner suspected that the women may be in possession of illegal drugs, so he radioed for a female trooper to search the pair.
Trooper Jeannie Bui arrived and the lawsuit claims she used 'the same pair of gloves' to perform 'full body cavity searches' on both of the women, aged 26 and 27. The lawsuit alleges Turner refused to allow the women, who were both wearing bikins, to put on more clothing befroe being forced to stand along side the busy highway.
The DPS says Bui was fired after the lawsuit was filed, and Turner has been suspended.
Earlier this year, in an almost identical case, two women in Irving settled a lawsuit against the state for $185,000. They claimed they were pulled over for throwing a tobacco cigarette butt out of the car, and a female trooper, also now fired, did the exact same thing. In both cases, the women claimed the female trooper subjected them to 'humiliating' body searches in full view of male troopers and passersby on the highway.


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What a last two months it's been for many of our college and professional sports teams in Missouri.
The St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Chiefs and the Missouri Tigers all are the talk of the state.
Game 1 of the World Series between the Cardinals and the Boston Red Sox is Wednesday night at Fenway Park.
It's a rematch of the 2004 World Series, where Boston swept the Cardinals, celebrating its first championship since 1918 at Busch Stadium, which ended the "Curse of the Bambino."
Maybe the Cardinals will return the favor and celebrate at Fenway in game six or seven this season.
Or maybe the Redbirds will win in five games at home. Heck, let's just really return the favor and sweep the series.
I like the Cardinals' chances.
Adam Wainwright and Michael Wacha are pitching the first two games in Boston, and then the series moves to St. Louis on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Allen Craig is returning to the lineup, and will be the designated hitter for the games in Boston.
Both teams have strong bullpens. The Red Sox have solid starting pitching, but not as dominant as Wainwright and Wacha are capable of being.
Joe Kelly and Lance Lynn will pitch Games 3 and 4 at home, which should help them. With Wainwright back for Game 5 and Wacha set for Game 6, I'm picking the Cardinals to win in six games.
If the series goes to seven games, it will be on Halloween night in Boston.
How about what we'll have in St. Louis on Monday night? Game 5 of the World Series (if necessary) and Monday Night Football between the Rams and the Seahawks both will be taking place. I think the Rams will finish second in that contest.
Never did I think Mizzou football would be in the position its in after seven games.
The Tigers are 7-0 and have a two-game lead in the SEC East with a 3-0 mark.
A win over South Carolina Saturday and you can almost pencil the Tigers in the SEC championship game in Atlanta. Unbelievable.
I had my doubts about this team at the beginning of the season, but I've been proven wrong. The defense has been playing well. They're great at rushing the passer.
The loss of James Franklin to injury was tough, but Maty Mauk stepped in and did well last week against Florida, one of the top defenses in the country.
The offense is deep at running back and receiver and the line is holding up.
At this point, my goal for Mizzou is to win the East, play Alabama in the conference title game and go on to play in a New Year's Day bowl game.
If they keep winning, we can bump that goal up to maybe a BCS game at the end of the year.
It sounds crazy to think, but a 10-2 record is a definite possibility. And who knows, it could be even better. I'm cautiously optimistic about the remainder of the season.
Speaking of Mizzou, I have to give a shout out to the volleyball team that has a 23-0 record and beat Florida, ranked No. 2 in the country, last Sunday.
I've never been a Chiefs fan, but I've always liked head coach Andy Reid, so it's cool to see them 7-0.
Did you know that Reid was Mizzou's offensive line coach from 1989-91? Maybe that Mizzou vibe is rubbing off on the Chiefs.
I'm not sure if they can keep it up or not. They do have a solid running game and defense, which could go a long way.
As far as the Rams go, the Missouri magic hasn't rubbed off on them.
The team is 3-4, Sam Bradford is out for the season with a torn ACL and it's a rough schedule in the second half of the season. Things don't look good.