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I had abandoned the Bee many years ago as I got sick and tired of their liberal BS and lousy reporting. But about a year ago they contacted me about a "hot" deal for Sundays. Well I thought to myself, "why not?" I can read the liberals crap and see if if anything has changed in their minds. Well, of course they are still all the same. Nothing to see here. But I am fascinated with how they think, or don't. Their world is far different than mine. Today I read some of the most ridiculous things from liberals it cracked me up. HERE is one.
The Bee even has a article on how Trump's victory will affect tourism! But the most telling is how the left criticizes and accuses the right of all these terrible things in life. They use racist talk to accuse us of racism. And all these calamities are just because white people don't like another group. One article by a ACLU gal from Northern California was the epitome of scare mongering. And how she and the ACLU will protect us from those awful Republicans. Of course the list of protections she fantasizes about doing were never done in the Obama Administration. Nothing done against his illegal policies. Not one thing. But I guess that is simply what liberals do.
HERE is a screed from a black woman who took a taxi and had a drink at a local bar and gained insight into Trump voter regret. You cannot make this stuff up. A couple of people makes a tidal wave opinion to a liberal. Amazing! This is the best the Bee can come up with?
HERE is a liberal who decries the positions of Republicans in 2008 for stating they will fight back on Obama's policies to go socialist. This dope just got apoplectic those people were not jumping on board the Obama train and tells us how terrible they are. Now he is all in to do the same thing he decried to Trump! These people are schizophrenic at best.
These articles in the Bee reflect the mania from the left quite well. No common sense, emoting all over the place for the smallest reasons. They claim ownership of all the compassion there is. They say we on the right are all those terrible things they make up in their heads. For goodness sake. Democrats started the KKK! It took Republicans to pass the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Democrats tried to defeat it. 500,000 men died to free the blacks from the democrats in the Civil War! Hillary Clinton gave a warm eulogy for KKK guy Robert Byrd. Bill Clinton's mentor was a racist! Republicans have been accused of the things the democrats actually do!
These whiny little lefties are in need of their "safe spaces" as the world is really a tough place. They have decided that the military is unnecessary at the levels that keep the barbarians at the gates. They think there should not be a border so 600 million people could move here just from our hemisphere! They profess equal outcomes and disregard the facts that we are for equal opportunities. They are all in for government telling them what toilet paper to use. The Obama Administration did not understand that Americans, for the most part those on the center and right are all about freedom from overbearing regulations on their lives. It took a bombastic developer to shred PC and tell the country what it is all about. And he won!
So since this is America, you liberals go do what you do for the remainder of the Trump term. Whine and complain. Drag everyone in to court and keep those trial lawyers busy. It seems like America takes a step forward and you liberals drive it back four steps. I say live with it. We did for eight years of Obama policies and now it is your turn.


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Dusty Kleiss is a bonafide American hero: a veteran pilot of the Battle of Midway, and one of the most effective dive bombers in U.S. military history.
It's June 1942 and the world's fate is about to be decided by a handful of pilots and their untested aircraft. Experience an inside look at the Battle of Midway, captured through rarely seen battle footage and firsthand accounts from its hero dive-bombing pilot, "Dusty" Kleiss. This is an hour-by-hour recount of one of the most pivotal conflicts of the 20th century. Take a closer look at how this desperately needed victory came about through the design of U.S. airplanes, the skill of the pilots, the element of surprise, and a stroke of luck.
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subset: commoncrawl


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WASHINGTON -- The return of Max Scherzer will have to wait.
The Washington Nationals announced their starting rotation for this weekend, and Scherzer was not a part of it. After throwing a simulated game earlier this week, there was speculation that Scherzer might be activated for his team's series against the Milwaukee Brewers.
However, Scherzer, who's dealing with a mild rhomboid strain and has only made one start in the past six weeks, isn't ready to go yet.
"I'll be honest with you: I want him to pitch," Nationals manager Davey Martinez before Friday's 2-1 win over Milwaukee. "But we have to be smart. And we want to make sure that when he comes back, he's back with us for the rest of the season."
Scherzer, 35, threw about 60 pitches on Tuesday at Nationals Park as part of a simulated game. Although he isn't feeling any discomfort, the plan is for Scherzer to work another sim game on Saturday in an effort to ramp up his workload.
"We still have to strengthen him to pitch, his endurance, to get him through 75, 80 pitches," Martinez said. "So [Saturday] he comes out, we'll see how it goes, and we'll come back and see how he recovers after that."
Scherzer, who skipped the All-Star Game because of his back issues, originally hit the injured list on July 13. He returned to pitch against the Colorado Rockies on July 25, allowing three runs in five innings and throwing a season-low 86 pitches.
Four days later, he again landed on the IL, where he's been since.
A three-time Cy Young winner, Scherzer is 9-5 with a 2.41 ERA in 20 starts this year. Entering Friday's action, he was tied for second in the National League with 189 strikeouts. In his first 11 seasons prior to this year, he had made two trips to the injured list.
Originally, Washington's starters for Saturday's and Sunday's games were listed as TBD, leaving open the possibility that Scherzer could return against the Brewers. On Friday afternoon, the Nats announced Anibal Sanchez and Erick Fedde would start the final two games of the series. Lefty Patrick Corbin takes the hill in the opener against Brewers righty Adrian Houser.
The Nationals (66-55), who are on a five-game winning streak, are in second place in the NL East, 4.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves, who lost 8-3 on Friday. Washington also holds the top wild-card spot, with the Brewers (63-59) just one game out of the second wild-card position.


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Title: Comet's Burial Author: Gallun, Raymond Z., 1911-1994 Language: English As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available. Copyright Status: Not copyrighted in the United States. If you live elsewhere check the laws of your country before downloading this ebook. See comments about copyright issues at end of book. *** Start of this Doctrine Publishing Corporation Digital Book "Comet's Burial" *** This book is indexed by ISYS Web Indexing system to allow the reader find any word or number within the document. [Illustration: BRINKER BRINKER in footprints] _A man may be a scoundrel, a crook, a high-phased confidence man, and still work toward a great dream which will be worth far more than the momentary damage his swindles cost._ _Comet's Burial_ _by_ RAYMOND Z. GALLUN Outside Tycho Station on the Moon, Jess Brinker showed Arne Copeland the odd footprints made in the dust by explorers from Mars, fifty million years ago. A man-made cover of clear plastic now kept them from being trampled. "Who hasn't heard about such prints?" Copeland growled laconically. "There's no air or weather here to rub them out--even in eternity. Thanks for showing a fresh-arrived greenhorn around..." Copeland was nineteen, tough, willing to learn, but wary. His wide mouth was usually sullen, his grey eyes a little narrowed in a face that didn't have to be so grim. Back in Iowa he had a girl. Frances. But love had to wait, for he needed the Moon the way Peary had once needed the North Pole. Earth needed it, too--for minerals; as an easier, jump-off point to the planets because of its weak gravity; as a place for astronomical observatories, unhampered by the murk of an atmosphere; as sites for labs experimenting in forces too dangerous to be conducted on a heavily-populated world, and for a dozen other purposes. Young Copeland was ready for blood, sweat, and tears in his impulse to help conquer the lunar wastes. He sized up big, swaggering Jess Brinker, and admitted to himself that this man, who was at least ten years his senior, could easily be a phony, stalking suckers. Yet, Copeland reserved judgment. Like any tenderfoot anywhere, he needed an experienced man to show him the ropes. He already knew the Moon intimately from books: A hell of silence, some of it beautiful: Huge ringwalls. Blazing sunlight, inky shadow. Grey plains, black sky. Blazing stars, with the great blurry bluish globe of Earth among them. You could yearn to be on the Moon, but you could go bats and die there, too--or turn sour, because the place was too rough for your guts. Afield, you wore a spacesuit, and conversed by helmet radiophone. Otherwise you lived in rooms and holes dug underground, and sealed up. The scant water you dared use was roasted out of gypsum rock. The oxygen you breathed was extracted from lunar oxides by a chemical process. Then air-rejuvenator apparatus reseparated it from the carbon-dioxide you exhaled, so that you could use it over and over. Copeland had read the tales: With that kind of frugality as the price of survival, lunar prospectors could turn selfish to the point of queerness. Afraid somebody might follow them to their mineral claims, they'd take more pains to leave as little spoor as possible than a fox being tracked by dogs. "Speaking of how footprints last around here," Copeland remarked for the sake of conversation, "I understand you've got to be careful--stick to high ridges, and to parts of the flat _maria_ where there's no old volcanic ash or dust of thermal erosion." "Guys who do that are misers and old women, kid," Brinker scoffed. "Hell--it sure ain't because they're modest that they're so cautious! Me--I do things right." He lifted a foot from the dust beside the path, revealing the mark of the specially etched steel sole of his spaceboot. A name was stamped across the print: BRINKER. "I'm proud of where I've been and where I'm going--like a true explorer," the big man said. "Get some soles like mine made for yourself, fella, and come along with me." Copeland was intrigued. "Let me think about it a little." * * * * * During the next few hours he heard quite a lot. A big, blonde nurse--one of the two women in the sealed warrens of Tycho Station, said: "Young man, I _love_ Jess Brinker. But keep away from him, or you'll wind up in the prison pits, or worse." And Copeland heard about Tom Brinker, Jess' dad--the kind of swindler always found in rough new territory, anywhere. He had promoted the idea of a real city on Lunar. Yeah--one with trees and flowers. What sentimental bait that was for home-starved, desolation-sick wanderers! No wonder somebody had murdered him recently. By common opinion, twenty-odd years was the only difference between Jess and his father. "Stay clear," was the warning; the name of Brinker was mud and poison. Arne Copeland was a cagey youngster; nobody influenced him when he made up his mind. He was no cow-eyed hero-worshipper; yet, on his own, he kind of liked the large, battered, egotist. Copeland knew that he was an egotist himself. He also knew that merely to be on the sketchily-explored Moon was to take chances. So he said "Okay," to Brinker, and got some metal boot-soles made, with his name etched into them in reverse, as in a rubber stamp. * * * * * Under packs that no coolie could ever have lifted against Earth gravity, they left Tycho Station and moved toward the fringe of that lunar hemisphere which is never seen from Terra--though it is no different from the visible half in general character. Wherever their feet found a medium that would take an impression, they left their trademark behind them. Copeland could brush a name out with a glove; otherwise those names were about as permanent as if carved from granite, for there was no wind to blow the dust, and no rain to wash it away. Passing tractor-caravans would never blot out all of the footprints. Not in ages of time. "At least we got us a monument, Jess," Copeland said once, feeling somewhat thrilled. "That's what guys out exploring and prospecting need. A legend. A reputation." Jess Brinker's eyes narrowed, making him look sinister. "Yeah, Cope," he drawled. "But in my case it's a _counter_-reputation, with a little of Robin Hood thrown in, to help blow the stink of my Old Man off me. I want some friends and backing, so I can do what Dad really wanted to do--though he was as much of a rogue as a saint. You listening, Cope?" Copeland kept his face stony. "Tell me what you want to, and then stop," he said softly. "Thanks," Brinker answered. "It doesn't matter too much that I can guess who killed Pop, and would like to square things. Yeah, a hatchet-faced ex-partner who turned pious and legal on the outside, after he got the breaks. How old is that story, I wonder?... It doesn't even rile me terribly, knowing that Dad wasn't all crook, knowing he _believed_ his idea was good for everybody, and was trying to get funds to put it across." Brinker sighed and went on: "The idea is the _important_ thing, Cope. A place with trees and flowers, a city, maybe--an antidote for the Moon's desolation. Anyone here feels the need in his bones and nerves. But it would take more air and water than could ever be imported, or drawn from the lunar crust. You wouldn't know it on the dead surface, but two hundred miles deep in the Moon there's still molten lava, plentiful water in the form of steam, volcanic carbon-dioxide gas--the makings of oxygen. There's nitrogen, too. "How to reach that stuff is the question. Drills break under the pressure of depth at a tenth of the distance. Pop's idea involved Brulow's Comet, which will be coming back sunward from far space in three years. Imagine--a comet! It could be dangerous, too; nobody could ever get permission for an attempt." Brinker paused again. Copeland and he were plodding through a jagged valley. The stars were merciless pinpoints, the silence brittle and grating. "But there must be a way of blasting down to those life-giving raw-materials, Cope," Brinker continued. "Maybe with atomic explosive. Experiments call for funds and backing. So I save my money, and wish I had a head for making it faster. And I look for weak spots in the lunar crust with radar. And I try to get people to know I'm around, and to like me...." Copeland realized that what he had just heard could be a line of malarky meant to kid a yokel, or a bid to get him involved in something. But he found himself kind of falling for the yarn. More than ever he suspected that folks were wrong about Jess Brinker; his warning instincts were being lulled to sleep. * * * * * Month-long lunar days passed, while the two men ranged over a segment of the hidden hemisphere. They trod plains and crater-walls unsullied by human feet before; they took photographs to be sold to the Lunar Topographical Commission; they located deposits of radioactive metals, which could be registered for investigation by an assaying party, and for possible royalties. Periodically they visited scattered supply stations, and then set out once more. Such a life had its poisons even for Brinker and Copeland, who were braced for meeting the unknown and the strange. Living in space suits for weeks at a time; smelling their own unwashed bodies; slipping an arm out of a heavy sleeve to draw food through a little airlock in their armor's chestplate; knowing, in spite of effective insulation, that the heat of day exceeded the boiling point of water, and that the cold of the protracted night, when usually they continued their explorations with the aid of ato-lamps, hovered at the brink of absolute zero--all those things had a harsh effect on nervous-systems. They found two human corpses. One had been crushed in a long fall, his spacesuit ripped open; he was a blackened mummy. The other was a freckled youth, coffined in his armor. Failure of its air-rejuvenator unit had caused asphyxia. What you did for guys like this was collect their credentials for shipment home. Copeland also found a Martian--inside its transparent version of a spacesuit, for the ancient Moon had been much the same as now. The being was dead, of course. Its brain-case had been a sac; its tentacles were like a snarl of age-hardened leather thongs. Lying near it was an even greater rarity--the remains of a different sort of monster from the planet that had been literally exploded in a war with Mars, to form the countless fragments that were the asteroids. That much of remote history was already known from the research-expeditions that had gone out to the Red Planet, and beyond. The queer, advanced equipment of these two beings from two small, swift-cooling worlds--which had borne life early, and whose cultures had rivalled briefly for dominance of the solar system until they had wiped each other out those fifty million years ago--lay scattered near them. It was still as bright and new as yesterday, preserved by the Moon's vacuum: Cameras, weapons, instruments--rich loot, now, to be sold to labs that sought to add the technology of other minds to human knowledge. For a year, things went well. The names, BRINKER and COPELAND, footprinted into the lunar dust, helped build the new reputation that Brinker wanted. Copeland and he were a hard-working team; they covered more ground than any other Moon explorers. The fights that Brinker got into with other toughs at the various supply stations, and never lost, added to the legend--that old Tom's son was savage and dangerous, but with a gentler side. For instance he once carried a crazed Moon-tramp, whom Copeland was too slight to have handled for a minute, fifty miles on his back to a station. Oh, sure--the stunt could be pure ballyhoo, not charity. But Copeland knew that more and more people had begun to admire his buddy. Brinker never found a weak spot in the lunar crust. "It's always about two hundred miles deep, Cope," he said. "Lots thicker than Earth's shell, because the Moon, being smaller, cooled more. But don't worry; nothing is impossible. Soon I'll have enough money to make minor tests. And maybe enough friends for serious support." Yeah--maybe it was all just a brain-bubble. But Copeland had seen enough of desolation to grind the spirit of the Brinker idea into his bones--even if he didn't think it was quite practical. "I'll throw my dough in with yours, Jess," he said. Their named bootprints helped build their fame as explorers; but there was a flaw and an invitation here which they both must have realized--and still faced as a calculated risk. * * * * * A lunar day later, they were plodding through the Fenwick mountains on the far hemisphere, when streams of bullets made lava chips fly. As they flopped prone in the dust, a scratchy voice chuckled: "Hello, Brinker. Maybe you and your pal want my bunch to escort you back to Tycho Station. We might as well have the reward. Robbery of a minerals caravan and three killings, they say. It's terrible how you scatter your tracks around...." Brinker grasped Copeland's wrist to form a sound-channel, so that they could converse without using their radiophones. "That was Krell talking," he said. "Dad's old partner." Luckily, it was not many hours to sunset. The mountain ridges, slanting up to the peaks, cast inky shadows that could hide anything. Brinker was canny; while more bullets spurted, he led a dash back to a ridge-shadow that went clear to the range-crest. Even with bulky packs, climbing was a lot faster than on Earth, where things weigh six times as much. So they got away, over the mountains. The black night of the far side of the Moon, where Earth never shines, hid them. "Making boot-soles with our names on them," Brinker growled bitterly, using the radiophone at reduced range. "The crudest kind of frameup." "Your Krell is quite a man," Copeland stated. "He _could_ have arranged all of it--sure," Brinker answered. "He knows I suspect that he finished Pop, so I'm dangerous to him. He might hate me, too, as part of my Old Man--sort of ... Whatever it was he got sore about, originally--money or principle, no doubt ... Besides, I don't think he wants the Moon to be a little more livable. It would encourage too many colonists to come, increase metals production, spoil prices, cheapen his claims. He's a corny man, with all the corny reasons ... "He, and some of his guys, could have robbed and killed and left footprints like ours. But any other lugs, seeking someone else to blame for their crimes, could have done all that. If that is so, Krell has got me even _legally_--without blame to himself." "Footprints!" Copeland snapped. "They're so obviously a frame that it's silly; anyone could see that! Another thing--maybe Krell was kidding, scaring us by saying that we are wanted. Tell you what, Jess: In any case I won't seem as guilty as you; I'll go back alone to Tycho Station, and clear us both." "You're an optimist, ain't you?" Brinker laughed. "Krell wasn't kidding; and in a rough place like the Moon, justice jumps to conclusions and gets mean, fast. Sure, the purpose of the footprints is obvious. But I've been fighting uphill against my Old Man's reputation for a long time. Who's gonna say I haven't backslid? What I want to accomplish is tough enough with everything in my favor." Brinker's voice was now a sinister rumble with a quiver in it. Arne Copeland turned wary again; he had never lost entirely the deepseated notion that Brinker might cause him misfortune. "So now what?" he demanded softly, flashing his ato-light beam against Brinker's face-window, so that he could see his expression. Copeland meant to forestall danger aggressively. But as the darkness between them was swept aside, he also saw the muzzle of Brinker's pistol levelled at him. The bigger man's grin was lopsided. "I'd give you my neck, Cope," he rumbled. "But I'd give both our necks for you-know-what. Now, because that's all there's left, I'm gonna try it Pop's crazy way. You're gonna help. If you and I can last through a couple of years of _real_ silence and solitude, it might have a chance. I got a ship hidden. Give me your gun. Easy! If you think I wouldn't shoot, you're a fool. Now I'll wire one of your wrists to mine; we've got a long march ahead." * * * * * Some march it was! Copeland was fiercely independent. The warnings about Brinker had gone to waste; so had his own wariness. Bitterness made him savage. The harshness of the Moon still ached in his guts--he wanted the steam and gases of its interior tapped and used, yes--but by some reasonable means. Jess Brinker must be truly Moon-balmy, now. Desolation-nuts. Wild for the sight of growing things. Else how could he think seriously of using Brulow's Comet? Was it hard to guess how? Copeland knew that he and Brinker had courage, and willingness to work for a sound purpose. But to trade long effort and hardship in a proposition that courted suicide, even in its probable failure--and wide destruction if it managed to be successful--was worse than folly. So, when these meanings became clear in his mind, he wrestled Brinker at every turn. Twice he almost won. He argued and cursed, getting nowhere. He defied Brinker to shoot him. The big man didn't do that. But at last Brinker jabbed a hypodermic needle--part of the regulation medical kit--through the flexible rubberized fabric of the elbow-joint of Copeland's spacesuit, and into his arm. * * * * * Many hours later, and many miles farther into the mountainous country, Copeland awoke in a cavern with glassy walls, illuminated by Brinker's ato-light. Brinker stood near where he lay. He seemed just grimly good-humored. "This is an old Martian supply depot, Cope," he offered. "I found it before I knew you, and I kept it in reserve for possible trouble, like now. I knew I could convert its contents to considerable money at any time. So it was like a bank-account, and a last resort, too. There's even a small Martian spaceship; only three others have ever been found, intact. I also cached some Earthly instruments here. You can bet I didn't leave _any_ tracks for miles around." Copeland's gaze caught the errie gleam of the strange little craft. He saw the stacks of oddly-made boxes and bales. His hackles rose as he thought of a senseless plunge into unplumbed distance. "Unwire my hands, Jess!" he coaxed again, trying to control fury. "Get wise! Damn you--you're more dangerous as an altruist than any crook could be!" Brinker's laugh was sharp, but his eyes held real apology. "Want to help me ready and load the ship?" he said almost mildly. "No--I guess not; you aren't quite in a cooperative frame of mind, yet. I'll need you later. Sorry, but you're the only guy around, Cope." Brinker blasted queer bulkheads out of the ship, in order to make it habitable for humans. The exit of the cavern had been masked with debris, but now he cleared it. He tossed Copeland aboard and took off into the lunar night. * * * * * The vast journey lasted for months. Once Brinker said to his sullen, and again partially-drugged, captive: "Maybe in two years, if we're very lucky, we'll be back." Hurtling outward, they passed the orbits of Mars, the asteroids, Jupiter, and Saturn. There, with Earth-made instruments, Brinker located what he sought: Brulow's Comet. So far from the sun, where the fluorescence-inducing radiations were thinned almost to nothing, it glowed hardly at all. And it had almost no tail; it was only a gigantic, tenuous ghost, with a core of stone and magnetic iron fragments. Still dazed, Copeland thought about comets. Wanderers, following elongated orbits that loop tight around the sun at one end and plumb the depths of space at the other. Of all large forms moving through the void, they were the least dense. In coma and tail, they were only intensely rarefied and electrified gas. The great enigma about them was that things so deficient in mass and gravity could hold onto even that much atmosphere for long. Perhaps new gases were baked out of the meteoric core, each time a comet was close to the sun; maybe some of them even renewed their atmosphere periodically, by capturing a little of the tenuous substance of the solar corona, during their very near approaches to it. Brulow's Comet was on the sunward swing, now, gaining speed under solar gravitation; but it still had a long ways to go. Brinker guided the ship down through its coma and toward its lazily-rotating nucleus, where thousands of fragments of iron and rock swirled around their common center of gravity. The chunks clattered against the craft's metal hull, but did no damage at their low speed. Brinker brought the ship to rest at the center of the nucleus, where there was one solid mass of material a hundred yards in diameter. "Well, we're here, Cope," Brinker said grimly. "We don't have to work right away--if you don't want to. We've got too much time." Those two years looming ahead were the worst. If the Moon had been harsh, it was nothing to this eerie place. The heart of this small comet was illumined by faint, shifting phosphorescence, ranging from blue and tarnished silver to delicate if poisonous pink. Perhaps the cause was the same as that of the terrestrial aurora. The silence here was that of space; but the swirling motion of the nucleus suggested a continuous maddening rustle to Copeland. He had to yield to Brinker's wishes. Toil might divert him some, keep him from feeling the tension of time and strangeness so much. "Okay, Brinker," he said. "You win. Brulow's Comet is headed for a close approach to the Earth-Moon system. So you want to be spectacular, and shift it a little from its orbit--so that it will hit the Moon and maybe break its crust. Was that so hard to figure? That sounds pretty big, doesn't it? But I'll humor you. Let's see how far we get ... Since we're here." His sarcasm was tired. * * * * * As a preliminary, they cut a cavern in the central mass of the nucleus with Martian blasters, and fitted it with a crude airlock. The cavern would be better to live in than the interior of a ship meant for alien beings. They moved Martian apparatus and supplies into it: Air-rejuvenators, moisture-reclaimers, cylinders of oxygen and water, and containers of nourishment--all millions of years old. Their remaining supply of Earthly food in their packs was now very short. It was weird--eating what had been preserved so long ago, on another world, for beings just barely close enough to human for their food to be edible. Gelatins, sectional fragments of vegetation, and what might have been muscle-tissue. Copeland and Brinker both gagged often. It wasn't the bland, oily taste so much, but the idea.... Some of it, Copeland decided, was not native Martian. It was more like terrestrial fish. And slabs of coarse meat might have been flesh of the last dinosaurs! Martians surely must have visited Earth briefly, though evidence there had long since weathered away. * * * * * While the still-distant sun sent thin light into the comet, Brinker and Copeland removed the propulsion-tubes from the ship and welded them to the central chunk of the nucleus. They had a number of other spare jet-tubes. These they fastened to lesser masses. Whenever, in the slow swirling of the nucleus, tubes pointed in the calculated proper direction at right angles to the comet's course, they were fired in long bursts. Thus, slowly, like a perfectly-balanced bank vault door moved by a finger, the mass of the comet--slight by volume, but still measuring many thousands of tons--was deflected in the opposite direction. Astrogation-instruments showed the shift. Copeland had expected such coarse deflection to be possible; still, it startled him--this was the moving of a celestial body! "Just a little--for now, Cope," Brinker said. "We'll leave the fine aiming for later. Meanwhile we've got to pass the time, stay as well as we can, and keep our heads on straight." Sure--straight! If Brinker hadn't turned foolish before they had come, they wouldn't be out here at all. In a month they were already thinning down from malnutrition and strain. At first, thinking coldly, Copeland was sure they'd wilt and die long before they got near the Moon. Then, as they managed to steady themselves some by the diversions of playing cards, and studying the intricacies of Martian equipment, he began to fear once more that Brinker might succeed in his efforts--but fail terribly in result. Many times Copeland went over the same arguments, struggling to speak calmly, and without anger: "I wonder if you realize it, Brinker--with enough velocity one large meteor carries more energy than a fission bomb. A whole comet would affect thousands of square miles of the lunar surface, at least. Smash equipment, kill men. And if the comet happened to miss the Moon and hit Earth--" Sometimes Brinker's expression became almost fearful, as at an enormity. But then he'd turn stubborn and grin. "There's plenty of room to avoid hitting the Earth," he'd say. "On the Moon, astronomers will warn of the shifted orbit of Brulow's Comet in plenty of time for everybody to get out of danger. Most of what we've got to worry about now, is our lives, or jail ..." A moment later, as like as not, they'd be slamming at each other with fists. Copeland found it hard to contain his fury for the man who had brought him such trouble, and--without intent--was so determined to extend it to many others. Brinker kept winning the scraps. But Copeland's ten-year age-advantage meant something when it came to enduring hardship and partial-starvation over a long period. They didn't weaken equally. This levelling of forces was one thing that Copeland waited for. Another was that when Brulow's Comet was found to be off course, a ship might be sent to investigate. He never mentioned it, certainly; but once Brinker said: "I'm ready for what you're thinking, Cope. I've got weapons." By then they spent much of their time in torpid sleep. Another difficulty was that it was getting harder to keep one's mind consistently on the same track. Space, tribulation, and the months, were having their blurring effect. Often, Copeland spent many hours in wistful reverie about his girl, Frances, in Iowa. Sometimes he hated all people--on Earth, Moon, and everyhere, and didn't care what happened to them. On other occasions Brinker's basic desire to lessen the desolation of the lunar scene looked supremely good to him--as of course it always had, in principle. Then, briefly and perhaps madly, he was Brinker's pal, instead of yearning to beat him to a pulp. * * * * * Somehow, twenty months crept by, and the first spaceship hove inquisitively close to Brulow's Comet. A shadow of his former self, Brinker crept out of the cavern to man his weapons. But like a famished beast seeking prey, Copeland followed him. His victory, now, was almost easy. Then all he had to do was wait to be picked up; the ship was coming nearer. Through the now much-brightened glow of the comet, it had ceased to be a planetlike speck reflecting sunlight; and showed its actual form. Confusion whirled in Copeland's head; hunger gnawed in him. Yet he looked down at Brinker--poor Brinker, beaten unconscious inside his spacesuit. Brinker had tried to fight lifeless dreariness. Copeland, weak of body and fogged of mind, was now close to maudlin tears. Dreariness was the enemy--here as elsewhere. He tried to think; his stubborn nature mixed itself with splinters of reason, and seemed to make sense. His twenty months of suffering out here had to be used--mean something--didn't it? It couldn't be just a futile blank. You had to follow a thing started through to the end, didn't you? Brinker wanted to improve the Moon, which certainly needed that. Okay--finish the job that had gone so far. Damn desolation everywhere! Fight it! Smash it! Sudden rage made Copeland's thin blood pound. Dimly he realized that he was driven by the same dreariness-disease that motivated Brinker. So what? Who cared about smashed lunar equipment, after all. And beside experience, prison would be paradise. Copeland fired a Martian rocket-launcher, aiming behind the ship. He saw the blaze of atomic fission. Jets flaming, the craft fled. In his phones he heard a voice that he remembered: "That you, Brinker? Trying your father's trick, eh? Idiot! You'll kill yourself, or be executed. And now you even shoot!" Fury at Krell clinched Copeland's decision. He did not answer him. But when Brinker woke up he said savagely, without friendship or forgiveness, yet with cooperation: "We're on the same side, now. Let's aim Brulow's Comet." Concentrating was hard, but they had their instruments and calculators. Velocity, position, and course of both comet and Moon had to be coordinated to make them arrive in the same place at the same moment. It was a problem in astrogation, but a comet was not as easily directed as a space ship. Copeland had once thought that the necessary fine guiding couldn't be done. The jet-system they had rigged in that inconveniently whirling nucleus was crude. But one thing was in their favor; they had ample time. They could adjust their course with the jets, check with instruments, and re-adjust--again and again. Copeland found himself doing the vital part of the job; he was better at math than Brinker. They still had plenty of Martian food left--for what it was worth to human insides. Perhaps unified purpose and action brightened their outlook a little, helping their bodies. They could never work very long--even in the almost total absence of gravity. But--at least--their weakness wasn't increasing now. During those last four months they drove several ships away. Earth and Moon swelled to spheres, ahead. Brulow's Comet lengthened its tail under increased solar light-pressure. Intensified radiation made its shifting colors glorious. Brinker and Copeland lined their gigantic missile up on its target as perfectly as they could. Fifty hours before the crash was due, they smashed most of the jets. The remaining ones they tried, feebly, to refit into their ship, meaning thus to escape. * * * * * Three Space Patrol craft showed up, and they had to man their weapons. Copeland hated to be an outlaw; but now he could not see effort brought to nothing. Brinker and he had survived so far, accomplishing much--far better results than he had expected; it made him surer that their purpose was generally sound. More missiles were fired carefully--not to do damage, but to discourage the intruders; the latter were held at bay for another twelve hours. Copeland and Brinker left radio commands and threats unanswered, so it was hard for their opponents to get a fix on their position in the whirling nucleus. Explosions blazed around them, but never very close. Masses of iron and stone were shattered and half vaporized, cooling subsequently to fine dust. The nucleus of Brulow's Comet expanded a bit under the battering that went on within it. At an opportune moment, Copeland and Brinker clung to one of their jet-tubes and, gunning it very lightly, rode it from the central core-mass of the nucleus to a lesser meteor, and hid in a cleft. A dust-poll had concealed their change of position. And now, with so many other large meteors around them, they would be almost impossible to find. They glimpsed the Patrol craft invading the heart of the comet. Men poured forth, struggling to set up jets in the hope of still deflecting this juggernaut from the Moon. But the comet was already much too close; before the setting-up was half completed it had to be abandoned. Still, the ships remained almost to the last. Copeland wondered tensely if they'd ever go. His withered palms perspired. "We could still yell for help--have them take us off," Brinker suggested when they had left. He spoke by sound-channel contact. The Moon loomed huge and ugly ahead. Copeland gave it a scared glance, and then laughed grimly. "Ironic, that would be," he snapped, "No--we've got this jet to ride, and we're still at liberty." From space, lashed to the flaming propulsion tube, they saw the crash happen. It was a terrific spectacle. Copeland's hopes now had jagged cracks of worry. The comet seemed to move slowly, its coma flattening over the Moon's spaceward hemisphere. There were blinding flashes as the chunks of its nucleus bit into the lunar crust, their energy of velocity converting largely to heat. Then dust masked the region of impact. The comet's tail collapsed over the Moon like a crumbling tower. Copeland gulped. He saw that Brinker had gone limp--fainted. Weakness was enough to cause that; but the fact of a plan carried out had a shock in it, too. Copeland worked the jury-rigged controls of the jet, continuing to decelerate. At spotty intervals, under the terrible thrust of reducing speed, he was unconscious, too. * * * * * There was no such thing as picking a landing-spot. Checking velocity soon enough, so close to the Moon, took all of the propulsion tube's power--so he just followed the comet down. Almost at a stand-still at last, balanced on a streamer of flame, he toppled into hot dust Feebly he worked to unlash himself from the tube. Brinker, jolted back to semi-consciousness, managed to do the same. Weakened and spent, they could not even lift themselves against the slight lunar gravity for a while. The darkness around them was Stygian. But as more dust settled, the sky cleared, and the normal stars of the lunar night blazed out. Their attention was drawn in one direction inevitably. Red-hot lava glowed there, in scattered areas over what was clearly an extensive expanse of territory. White vaporous plumes spurted high above the ground, and against the sides of new-formed meteor-craters, a white layer was collecting. Copeland staggered erect. "Frost and snow!" he stammered. "From volcanic steam! The first frost and snow on the Moon in a billion years! We've done it, Brinker! Brulow's Comet really did crack the thick lunar crust...." He heard Brinker's grunt of premature enthusiasm. The Patrol picked them up hours later, wandering dazedly. They were emaciated ghosts of men--almost skeletons in armor. They gave their names, but didn't really come to their senses until the prison doctor in Tycho Station treated them, and they had slept for a long time. "Don't worry, fellas. Relax," he said--with fury in his eyes. Other faces were grim. * * * * * At the speedy trial in Tycho Station, sharp-featured Krell was among many who flung accusations. "In the impact-zone itself--an area a hundred miles across--mining installations and machinery of tremendous value were utterly destroyed," he said. "But lesser damage extends to a far wider circle. Thousands of claims have been buried in dust, till much of the far lunar hemisphere will have to be resurveyed. Luckily, miners and explorers were warned in time, and sought safety. But the charge of wholesale vandalism--terrible enough--does not stand alone. These men are to be remembered as accused robbers and murderers." In rebuttal, Brinker's defiance was a little uncertain, as if under so much blame, he had lost his assurance. "Men who know the Moon know that its barrenness is poison, and not right for people!" he growled. "I tried to change it with Brulow's Comet--when I had no success by other means. Anyway, Copeland is blameless. I forced him to help me." Embitted, there was no warmth in Copeland for his older codefendant and jinx. Still, even without Brinker's attempt to shield him, he would have been loyal. "During all important parts of mine and Jess Brinker's joint project," he told the court, "I was in full agreement with his purpose." Their attorney accomplished one considerable victory before these angry people. The charge of previous murders and robbery was barred; it was admitted that footprints were easy to duplicate, and that the presence of some bearing the names of the guilty was unlikely. Brinker got fifty years in the mine-pits, and Copeland thirty. "You always figured I might get you in a jam, didn't you, Cope?" Brinker said. "I'll keep trying to fix that." * * * * * Copeland found nothing to grin about, in a thirty-year sentence. It was goodbye wandering, goodbye girls, goodbye everything. He'd get out middle-aged, finished, and marked. He might as well stay another twenty with Brinker--complete a sour association with him. Copeland had another recent jolt to brood over. A bunch of old letters from his Frances had been delivered to him. His inability to receive or answer any of them had brought the worst result. She had married another guy, and who could blame her? Arne Copeland wanted to kill Brinker. Getting desolation-goofy, and dragging him into this mess. But from Brinker's infuriating grin, Copeland caught a hot spark of hope, backed by reasoning. * * * * * Later, sweating in the penal mine-pits near Tycho Station, Brinker and Copeland still heard scraps of news. Explorers moved back into the region where the comet had split the lunar crust. The rising columns of steam and gas were perhaps unspectacular phenomena in themselves. But there they were, ready to fill a tremendous need. The sleepy internal fires of the Moon were unlikely to be violent. Yet they would push vapors up to the surface here perhaps for centuries. In balancing benefit against transient damage, was it necessary even to mention that deeper and richer mineral deposits had been laid bare for easy mining by the blast effect of the comet's downfall? All free men--good or bad, and of large or small holdings--were set to gain, Krell included. But better mines were a side-issue. The prisoners soon heard how roofs of transparent, flexible plastic, brought in bundles like fabric, were being reared over that smashed-up region, to trap escaping volcanic vapors. One tentlike structure. Then another and another. Here was ample water from volcanic steam, and vast quantities of carbon-dioxide from which ordinary air-rejuvenators could release breathable oxygen. Men who had lived so long in the lunar silence and barrenness, soon saw that these raw materials of life need not only be used locally, but could be piped anywhere. "Folks have caught on, Cope," Brinker said. "They were a little desolation-balmy, too--hence on our side all the time. Now they'll feel better about my Old Man. There'll be more than one city, I'll bet--clusters of big, plastic air-bubbles, self-sealing against meteor-punctures, warmed inside at night by volcanic heat. It won't happen all at once, but it'll come. Seeds'll be planted, and houses built. Parts of the Moon won't look the same." Krell's death was part of the turning tide. He was found in Tycho Station, head smashed by a boot-sole of metal; it was good that Brinker was in prison, because his name was printed into Krell's skull. Who did it? Neither Brinker nor Copeland cared very much. Some wronged stooge of Krell's, no doubt. Let the forces of law figure out the details. * * * * * Things got really good for Copeland and Brinker after popular demand forced their vindication. They were feted, honored, praised, rewarded. All Earth knew of them, and feminine colonists arriving as part of a new phase of the Moon's development, shined up to them as heroes. It is not to be said that they didn't enjoy the advantages of fame. Brinker said more than once: "Forget your Frances, Cope. Problems are easy, these days." The time came when Copeland growled in answer: "Sure--too easy. Having a lot of pals after the need is gone. No--I'm not criticizing. Most folks are swell. But I'd like to make friends and maybe find love a little more naturally. I thought I'd stay on the Moon; now I think I'll shove off for Mars. People are going there; whole towns are being built, I understand. And there's plenty of room for a lunar tramp, with a prison-record, to get lost ..." Copeland chuckled at the end. His vagabond blood was singing. He was also pitching a come-on at Brinker, for he'd seen him with some letters while they were prisoners. Copeland had glimpsed the name and address of the writer: Dorothy Wells, the big nurse that Brinker had known at Tycho Station. She was in Marsport now. "By gosh--I guess I'll go too, Cope!" Brinker rumbled. Looking back, Brinker thought it sort of funny that they were pals. He laughed. [Illustration] * * * * * Transcriber Notes: This etext was produced by Science Fiction Stories 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. page 62 original: Many hours later, and may miles farther changed to: Many hours later, and many miles farther page 69 no change: Embitted, there was no warmth in Copeland - retained Embitted *** End of this Doctrine Publishing Corporation Digital Book "Comet's Burial" *** Doctrine Publishing Corporation provides digitized public domain materials. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. This effort is time consuming and expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 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Finals week can be very stressful and it is very hard keeping to our everyday schedules. Students tend to lose sleep, lack nutrition, and struggle to gain energy. Here are a few tips on how to kill finals this semester!
The biggest struggle is sleep. We stay up late to study and finish assignments but then we turn into zombies who are so drowsy and drained and often times don't get the score we wanted because our minds and bodies were so tired and couldn't focus. Scheduling our study time and hours is a good way to make sure we take breaks. Even if it's for a well-deserved power nap. We will do much better on our finals if we balance our study and rest time.
Towards the end of the semester, our brains are working so hard and it is using a lot more energy to power our multitasking bodies than on a normal basis. So we need to make sure we replenish ourselves. Drinking plenty of water will keep us hydrated. It is very easy to forget when we are so busy. I prefer to drink something with added electrolytes. Whether it's a liquid or gummy it will help you gain all your energy back fast.
What about food? Fast food that is filled with grease and sodium will slow us down and make us feel horrible! Choosing foods that are alive and filled with nutrients will allow our bodies to run longer and feel less tired. It will also keep our immune
system strong and keep us from getting sick. Being sick during finals is the worst! Smoothies and green juice are an easy way to get all of our fruit and veggies in one meal.
Keep these tips in mind when finals are running towards you at full speed! Take a deep breath and slow down. It will all come together if you take care of yourself.
-Hannah Montgomery


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CULTURE & HERITAGE - Culture & History
by Alexander H. Joffe
The Times of Israel
February 5, 2015
Anti-Israel protestors march down Regent Street in London on August 9, 2014.
A recent poll shows that Britons regard Israel less favorably than any other country besides North Korea. The results came as a shock to Israelis and supporters of Israel, but they shouldn't have. After all, British supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement are widespread, blood libels about the Palestinian 'genocide' and Israeli organ harvesting are heard from members of the peerage, and Israel remains one of the few countries the British royal family hasn't visited.
True, Jews are deeply integrated into British society and have felt secure for decades. But incidents of antisemitic violence have been escalating and even notables like the Jewish director of television of the BBC have expressed fear about the future of Jews in the country. Antisemitism, interwoven and often indistinguishable from anti-Zionism, has reemerged full force. New statistics on antisemitic incidents prove that the British climate is changing for the worse.
Why the animosity against Israel, which extends from the political left to the right, and across all social classes? Four sources may be suggested, each with roots in the 20th century.
First, the British Establishment, comprised of elite schools and universities, government and idea setting industries like the media, arguably never recovered from the loss of the Empire. This should not be understood as a lament for the Empire so much as the manner in which it was lost, and for what the upper classes have come to believe should have been the outcome.
Britain won World War II but quickly lost the peace. Bankrupt, Britain was only preserved by an enormous loan in 1946 from the United States. Britain's most important colony, India, became independent in 1947 and promptly split with Pakistan at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and tens of millions of refugees. But it was Palestine, which at its peak was garrisoned by 100,000 British soldiers unable to keep the peace, which rankled most.
Losing the empire was bad enough, but losing Palestine to the Jews was a unique humiliation. Zionist anti-British violence, above all the destruction of the King David Hotel, resonated strongly for decades. It is also only now being understood that the British establishment had fought a covert war for decades against France in Syria and Lebanon, and had encouraged Arab states to invade the infant State of Israel. This strategy also backfired, helping usher in revolutionary regimes that overthrew British allies and reducing British influence still further. These multiple failures embittered the British Establishment for decades.
More recently, however, a wave of politically correct guilt has swept over the British Establishment. In this revisionist view the British Empire, unlike any other empire over the preceding 5000 years, was a singular source of evil in the world, and the impact in Palestine, uniquely so.
In this view, Britain's contradictory promises to Arabs and Jews, alleged favoritism towards Zionism and repression of local Arabs, and the British role in maintaining an international system that has permitted Israel to exist, are deep wrongs, yet to be righted. Little wonder that the BBC and British media focus relentlessly on Israeli wrongdoing, real and imagined, while glossing over those of its neighbors. In contrast, the British attitude toward Palestinians is marked by expressions of guilt and patronizing behavior.
A second reason for current British attitudes is the gradual conversion of the British labor movement to the Palestinian cause. Until the 1960s the British labor movement saw Israel as a fellow socialist state with anti-imperialist leanings. But in the wake of the 1967 and 1982 wars Israeli success (and alignment with the United States) became increasingly unpalatable to a labor movement that could only see Jews as underdogs or victims. Coupled with an orientation towards the Soviet worldview, implacably anti-Israel and pro-Arab, that grew from the 1960s onward, the labor movement has become one of the centers of virulent anti-Israel bias in Britain.
The dramatic changes in British Christianity must be counted as a third cause. Jews like to point to British Christian Zionism, but in truth this was a spent force even before the Balfour Declaration in 1917. Indeed, Anglicanism is deeply supersessionist and regards Judaism as retrograde, a community forsaken by God.
Though the Anglican Church has been in steep decline in recent decades, it has been reinvigorated in part by Palestinian Christians who have reinvented traditional Christian antisemitism, converting Israelis into Romans and themselves into the new Jews. The impact of this old/new Anglican theology is seen in the degree to which the church, like the labor movement, leads the BDS movement in Britain.
Finally, there is the role of Muslims in the United Kingdom. Until the early 21st century Muslims were a small minority. Now, in part thanks to the Labour Party's covert strategy of encouraging immigration under Tony Blair, including from backwards places like Pakistan, precisely to change the demographic and electoral composition of Britain, Muslims number around 5% of the total population. Muslims in Britain are at the forefront of antisemitic agitation in Britain and maintain a dizzying network of organizations to support BDS and the Palestinian and Islamist causes.
There are few reasons to think that Israel's position will become more favorable with Britons or other Europeans in the future. Ever increasing Muslim populations alone appear to ensure that political establishments will adopt voter-friendly anti-Israeli rhetoric and policies. And while local anti-Muslim sentiment is at an all-time high, the Establishment remains intent on repressing this officially through speech and thought codes, and unofficially, by denying such voices media access and legitimacy. The media in particular remains intent on making Israel the villain, regardless of the issue.
The rise of local independence movements that threaten the United Kingdom will also likely increase pro-Palestinian sentiment, since at least some of these (such as the Scottish National Party) have anti-imperialist sentiments and compete for immigrant voters. Record trade relations between Israel and Britain are one bright spot. But with BDS calls expanding in Britain there should be few expectations that trade will continue without several challenges.
Britain struggles to define itself in the 21st century – as a European or Atlantic state, as a multicultural or British society. In the end, Israel's continued belief in its own religious and national identities, and the vigor with which it defends itself, may be too much like the Britain of old for today's British to regard with much favor.
Alex Joffe is a historian and archaeologist. He is a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow of the Middle East Forum.
A reaction correspondance when asked about the article from B'nai B'rith UK:
Dear Gilberte,
I feel that journalists reporting in this way often inflame a situation. In this case, they are writing from outside Britain, exaggerating and scaring people, you tend to believe what you read when something is written authoratively.
In the UK, we know that there is more anti-Israel feelings since the Gaza conflict and also anti-Semitism in some areas. However, since the terrible attacks in France, I believe attitudes may be changing.
Have you seen this report by the Community Security Trust (CST). They are a well-respected organisation who work with all the Jewish communities as well as the police and the report gives a balanced view of the situation. You can access it via our website http://bnaibrithuk.org/the-cst-antisemitic-incidents-report-2014/


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The Preface for the Mass of Blessed John Duns Scotus
The Preface for the Mass of Blessed John Duns Scotus
Saint Francis seems to be a model of holiness for many, many people. Protestants of all flavors, the Muslims and Jews honor dear Francis for a variety of reasons. They've met Francis in as many ways as I have.
This morning I am pondering why I love Francis. Preparing for my reception of the sacrament of Confirmation I chose as my "confirmation name" Francis of Assisi because he not only seemed to reasonable guide for life, especially the spiritual life, but I was drawn to him through the stained glass in the parish church, the secular Franciscans were present but more important, the narrative of Saint Francis' life was verifiably compelling.
Over time I've come to know Francis as not only poor, humble, loving, faithful, guru of the human condition but also that he preached what he received from the Lord Himself: the mercy of Christ crucified is real, the truth of faith, hope and love in Christ is the path to salvation, that he preached the reality of knowing who in fact God is (that is, Father, Son, Holy Spirit) and not what he thought, guessed about God. Saint Francis emblematic of the Catholic second chance, that is, one can be given another chance for happiness. So, the real Saint Francis is not the personage hijacked by the lefty-looines who use him to justify all sort of liberalities of theology, Liturgy, social concern and life in the public order. Francis is not the stereotypical garden statue nor is he a man unconcerned with true conversion of life. He's quite the opposite: he life was a life in Christ firmly rooted in the Mystical Body of Christ –the Church– nourished by the sacraments, most especially the Holy Eucharist.
Friar Charles, OFMCap had this to say about Saint Francis.
Saint Francis died during the evening of October 3/4. The Church observes the death of Saint Francis on October 4.
As he lay dying, Francis prayed Psalm 142 and during the closing verse he died. This human and liturgical event is solemnly remembered each year by Franciscans to honor their holy
Father's entrance into the joy of being the Most Blessed Trinity be prayerfully remembering the passage –a transitus– of Francis from life to Life today, October 3.
Alleluia, Alleluia, Francis, poor and humble, enters
heaven rich and is welcomed with celestial hymns. Alleluia.
Psalm 142
I cried to the Lord with my voice; with my voice to the Lord did I make my supplication.
I poured out my complaint before him; I showed before him trouble.
When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then he knew my path.
In the way where I walked have they secretly laid a snare for me.
I looked on right hand, and held, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.
I cried to You, O Lord: I said, You are my refuge and my portion in the land of the living.
Attend to my cry; for I am brought very low: deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I.
Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise Your name: the righteous shall compass me about; for You shall deal bountifully with me.
Glory to the Father
and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and
will be forever. Amen.
Alleluia, Alleluia, Francis, poor and humble, enters
heaven rich and is welcomed with celestial hymns. Alleluia.
O God, you granted
our blessed Father Francis the reward of everlasting joy: grant that we, who
celebrate the memory of his death, may at last come to the same eternal joy;
through Christ our Lord. Amen.


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Jordan Suarez is Wrestler of the Week
Jordan Suarez is Wrestlingtexas Wrestler of the Week. Suarez a Junior this season is a product of Katy Morton Ranch High School who this past summer became a Cadet All American by placing 3rd in Fargo at the Womens Cadet National Championships. Suarez also was a UIL folkstyle State runner up last season in the 6A girls division.
Congrats to Jordan Suarez


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The Eagle Rock Ruritan Club welcomed two new members into the club at its March meeting at the Eagle Rock Community Center– Lee and Stacy Crabtree. The meal was provided by the Oriskany Community Club.
Pastor David Cox from King Memorial Church in Oriskany brought an informative program about Weekday Religious Education (WRE). Having programs in all seven Botetourt County Elementary Schools, WRE's goal is to bring Scripture into young people's lives and promote basic moral principles. The goals and teachings of WRE go hand in hand with the well- established Character Counts Program in Botetourt Schools.
In addition to the Botetourt County Council of Weekday Religious Education, there are 21 other councils in the Virginia Council of Weekday Religious Education, of which Pastor Cox is currently president. There is a total of 33 states which have the WRE Program. All of the WRE Programs are based on a court approved released-time rule and require written parental consent in order for elementary school students to attend.
Cox teaches WRE at Eagle Rock and Breckinridge Elementary Schools in portable classrooms located on private property adjacent to the campuses, and at Greenfield Elementary School in a bus classroom which is driven to a location adjacent to the campus one day per week. The other four elementary schools in the county also have portable classrooms on private property adjacent to the campuses. The WRE program is funded totally by contributions from individuals, churches, businesses, and civic organizations.
The April Club meeting was held at Forest Grove Baptist Church, with the meal provided by church members. The 34 members and guests welcomed the program presented by Jeff Sterns, manager of the historic Masonic Theater in Clifton Forge. The theater was built in 1905 by the Masons, who met on the top floor for 26 years, with the main floor being used as an opera house. Sterns told the group that a $6+ million renovation project at the theater was completed in July 2016, and the building became operational in September 2016. Since its re-opening in September, the Masonic Theater has served thousands of folks.
The May meeting of the Ruritan Club will be "Buddy Night" and will be held at the Eagle Rock United Methodist Church, with members of the church providing the meal.
The annual fish fry fundraiser will be on Saturday, May 13, from 5-7 p.m. at the Gala Community Pavilion across from Galatia EPC on Gala Loop Road. Tickets are $8 (desserts extra) and need to be purchased in advance. For ticket information, call/text 540-797-6675 or email firstname.lastname@example.com. The club meets each third Tuesday, and always welcomes visitors.


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There were talks of $200,000. Investors said that currency as we know it today would cease to exist and we would be using digital money. Bitcoin was supposed to be the digital currency to rule them all. The defacto measure of wealth in the whole world. Alas, none of those predictions are coming to fruition.
A couple of years ago, the rise of Bitcoin was all the rage. It was an easy way to get rich and if you weren't on the boat then you weren't investing properly. At least that was the notion of all the so called Bitcoin "experts".
What many people were doing wasn't investing. It's called gambling. And the results can be devastating. Yes, there are some people that lucked out and got out at the top, but for the majority of the people who piled on when the price went asymptotic, they've been taken to the cleaners. No doubt over the next few years we'll hear stories and 60 Minute episodes of retirees and Millennials that bet big on Bitcoin only to see their fortune evaporate. This is what happens when people gamble on something with no fundamentals.
Lacking Logic
All the rhetoric of Bitcoin being the next global currency was just talk. It was a great way to argue that Bitcoin had a place in the world's economy and that it was actually a legitimate investment. Unfortunately, those that preached this idea were just great marketers. Good advertisers who lured unbeknownst individuals into investing.
There was never anything fundamental about Bitcoin that made it an investment. If we follow Robert Kiyosaki's, writer of Rich Dad Poor Dad, definition of an investment, it would have been defined as an asset that generates positive cash flow by owning it. If we look at Bitcoin it never did that. Owning a Bitcoin never generated monthly cash flow. It never paid interest, nor did it ever give a dividend for holding.
On top of that, Bitcoin never generated revenue or profit. There was no way to measure the value of a Bitcoin through any form of analysis. Was the value growing for a specific reason? No. It was totally based on supply and demand and scarcity. But why was it scarce? Because of a hard math problem? If that was the case why aren't 12th grade calculus teachers worth a billion dollars?
Bitcoin was never going to replace global currency because of its volatility. It didn't make sense for any retail store to accept Bitcoin when the valuation of it was so volatile. What store would accept Bitcoin just to see it drop 10% the next day? That's like selling for a discount when you didn't want to put your product on sale. And what shopper would want to pay with Bitcoin when it kept rising 10% a week? Instead of paying $1000 for an iPhone, the consumer would end up paying $1100 after one week. It made no sense.
Classic Greaterfool Theory
Many people don't even know about the Greaterfool Theory of investing, but we preach it to each other almost all the time. "Oh, this is a great investment, you need to jump on it". "This is worth more, everyone is buying it." This greed and lust mixed up into one bad investment.
Essentially, the greater fool theory follows the premise that a buyer or investor will purchase an asset without regard to its quality (revenue and profit need not apply) in the belief that another individual (or "greater fool") will come along and quickly buy it for a higher price because of the same belief. This type of behaviour is what forms the classic "investment bubble".
The classic bubble or greater fool theory graph, pretty much mirrors the Bitcoin price chart above. Bitcoin was a classic bubble. Many people pumping it and getting rich, and then at the very end when enthusiasm wanes things capitulate. The last one holding the bag is always the loser. Always is, always will be.
As a means of achieving financial independence Bitcoin failed miserably. Who do you know that is living off Bitcoin right now and paying their rent with that investment? Probably no one. The fact is speculative investments with very little fundamentals rarely make turn out to be a good idea. They are a gamble like the casino.
The lucky few who made a lot of money achieved what some people achieve at the roulette table. They joined the table when their number got hit a couple of times. That's a 32 to 1 payout for their bet. People who saw the winner celebrating started to join the table because they though it was hot. But in the end the house always wins. Those that joined late lost everything. The one that got in early and won two rolls escaped by making a lot of money, but now that one trick pony is gone. Where's the next hot table?
This is how people invest, or I should say gamble. They look for quick wins and chase big gains rather than trying to build a sustainable investment portfolio. Instead of gambling with stocks like a casino, the average Joe should use time to their advantage and build a balanced passive investment portfolio that becomes a winner over the long run. This never seems to happen though because history always tends to repeat itself over and over. Fools just like to keep losing their money over and over again. Oh well…
If you lost big on Bitcoin, let this be a lesson. Don't go chasing things you don't understand or believe media hype that has very little substance. Let the fools jump in with their money while you grow your money slowly. It's OK if a few people score big. Don't be jealous. Remember that slow and steady is what wins the race. Just be glad that you aren't taken for an emotional ride when the bubble starts to burst.


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Gaming giant Electronic Arts has come under fire from gamers after it offered customers who pre-ordered the game from a High Street retailers exclusive weapons.
EA hooked up with Game stores to offer early adopters a Type 88 LMG, a gas-powered, air-cooled light machine gun with bipod for improved accuracy; a unique flash suppressor for the SKS sniper rifle, which makes it harder for enemies to pinpoint where shots are coming from; and armour-piercing flechette ammunition for the DAO-12 shotgun.
Angry comments on EA's official blog said the exclusive add-ons would make the game unbalanced an unfair for those who didn't qualify for the powerful and exclusive weapons.
I have no problem with day-one unlocks as a little bonus," claimed one fan according to thinq_ "but store exclusive weaponry is just pathetic."
Even gamers who pre-ordered the much anticipated shooter direct from EA will miss out on the weaponry.


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Wyndham Hill
1851 Knapp Street
Grand Rapids, MI 49505
Tucked away on the hilltop in Northeast Grand Rapids , Wyndham Hill provides a quiet, relaxed community that you will love to call home. Wyndham Hill offers you a place to unwind after a day#sq#s work and take more time for yourself… relax in the sparkling pool or hot tub, enjoy the view from your oversized balcony, or put your feet up in your spacious living room. Wyndham Hill is conveniently located only minutes from downtown Grand Rapids and less than a mile from Knapp#sq#s Corner where you#sq#ll find exceptional shopping, entertainment, and great restaurants & cafés. Visit this award-winning community and start enjoying the good life today.
Our Pricing
These are general 'rack rates' for a fully furnished, VIP corporate apartment. Prices and availability subject to change, based on a 30 day or longer stay. Please call 1-888-249-5719 or e-mail firstname.lastname@example.com for our current specials.
Our flat-rate pricing covers all your basic necessities, including furniture, appliances, dishes, linens and all utilities, including local phone and cable. Learn more about what's included.
Community / Apartment Amenities
- Fitness Center
- Garage Parking
- High-speed Internet access
- Outdoor Pool
- Patio or Balcony
- Washer/Dryer in-suite


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Ingredients (Starter Mix)
5oz Plain Flour
8oz Caster Sugar
1 1/2 pack Dry Active Yeast/3tsp.
1/2 Pint of warm Milk
- Dissolve the yeast in the warm water for 10mins, then stir.
- Add the flour and sugar, then mix thoroughly.
- Slowly stir in the warm milk.
- Cover the bowl in a clean tea towel/cloth.
- Leave in a cool, dry place for 24hrs.
- Proceed with the 10-Day cycle below.
Day 1: Put me in a large mixing bowl and cover loosely with a tea towel.
Day 2: Stir well.
Day 3: Stir well.
Day 4: Herman is hungry. Add one cup each of plain flour, sugar and milk. Stir well.
Day 5: Stir well.
Day 6: Stir well.
Day 7: Stir well.
Day 8: Stir well.
Day 9: Add the same as Day 4 and stir well. Divide into 4 equal portions and give away to friends with a copy of these instructions. Keep the fourth portion. (It was on this day that I found out my friends were not as enthusiastic about Herman as I was!)
Day 10: Now you're ready to make the cake. Stir well and add the following:
- 1 cup/8oz/225g Caster Sugar
- 2 Cps/10 oz/300g Plain Flour
- 1/2 tsp. Salt
- 2/3 Cup/5.3oz/160ml Cooking oil (preferably Sunflower oil)
- 2 Eggs
- 2 tsp. Vanilla Essence
- 2 Cooking Apples cut into chunks
- 1 Cup/7oz/200g Raisins
- 2 tsp. Cinnamon
- 2 tsp. Baking powder
- Preheat the oven to 170°/180°c.
- Mix the sugar, vanilla essence, eggs and oil together, and add Herman to this mixture.
- Sift the flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder over the wet ingredients.
- Cut the apples into chunks and add to the mixture, as well as the raisins. (I didn't add raisins to my Herman as my taste buds don't agree with them!)
- Mix together well and pour into a large baking tin.
- Melt a 1/4 Cup of butter on a low heat, and pour over the top of the cake mixture. Sprinkle a 1/4 of Brown sugar over the mixture as well. (The mixture will be extremely heavy and liquid in form.)
- Bake for 45mins and check if the cake is well baked in the middle. If not, cover with tin foil and bake for a further 20mins.
- Serve with warm cream or ice-cream.
N.B. This cake can be frozen and defrosted to be eaten at a later date.


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By Florence Stahl ~
Dr. Jay Bergman's analysis of the now-infamous "private" conversation between Presidents Sarkozy and Obama (Jewish Ledger, Nov. 12, 2011), is spot-on. Except, that is, for his conclusion.
Bergman rightly determines that Obama could not possibly have meant that he literally "deals with" Netanyahu every day. That would be ridiculous given the knowledge and experience of the person to whom he was speaking. They both know better. But he then closes his argument convinced that "the president is obsessed with Netanyahu and, by extension, with Israel." Perhaps. But I don't think our composed President is obsessed with any one foreign issue, vexing as this one may be.
What is so burdensome to our President that he instantly "one-ups" Sarkozy? Why does he feel more beleaguered than Sarkozy? Uncharacteristically, Obama reacts on a gut level and overstates when he says "I have to deal with him every day." The "him" is neither Netanyahu nor Israel. Both words are metaphors for Jews. In his mind, it's Jews and their influence as a constituency that envelop Obama…daily. He intuitively seeks Sarkozy's sympathy. Jews who evaluate his performance. Jews who pressure him. That's his constant burden. That's what weighs on his mind. Even as he unconsciously mangles his real meaning, he knows Sarkozy will understand.
Is this necessarily hostile? We don't know, but it's honest.
Florence Stahl
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inkl. MwSt. zzgl. Versandkosten
In der Regel an Lager, Lieferzeit ca. 1-3 Werktage
- Artikel-Nr.: PEP
- Garantie(Jahre): 2
This book contains over 30 guided-inquiry-based investigations for physics students to explore and analyze key physics concepts included in NGSS.
Physics Explorations and Projects is a collection of laboratory investigations aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Most included investigations set up a situation for students to explore and analyze with some guidance from the instructor—a guided-inquiry format that is very different from traditional laboratory experiments that provide step-by-step instructions. The activities are editable and appropriate for high school students from 9th grade to AP Physics. Sample results are included with the extensive instructor information.
Due to the nature of these activities, minimal instruction is provided for software use and data analysis. Instructor experience with Vernier sensors and software is recommended.
|Sek 2 & Tertiär
|Physik, Vernier


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Downtown Austin Engagement Session
This past week I photographed a couple's engagement in downtown Austin, which has been all-the-rage for some time now. Some of the wonderful elements that downtown has to offer are texture (which can be seen on brick walls/doors), skylines (imagine buildings stretching into the blue Texas sky) and murals. These were the things that I had in mind when I ventured downtown with Andrea and Taylor, and they made my job pretty easy.
Another concept that's popular these days among both photographers and those being photographed alike is post processing of images – particularly contrast-y, grainy, saturated (i.e., heavily edited photography). And one of the great things that shooting digital allows is capturing the image as it is and then making copies of the image during post-processing for conversion to something different and artistic, which is what I've attempted to do here. The result means that I can provide my photography clients with a photo of what our shoot looked like (more/less) on the day we shot and also a version of the same photo that has been "artistically rendered", shall we say.
At any rate, there's lots to see in downtown Austin. If you frequent downtown only at night then I recommend coming downtown on a Sunday evening and taking a walk down the same streets you usually visit (during the daylight). You'll be pleasantly surprised by what there is to see. And we all could use a little exercise! 🙂
Artistic Wedding Photos
Recently I had a bride ask to see some "artistic" wedding photos. This is definitely something that we do, albeit not as much as I'd like to. There are two parts to an artistic photo: framing and editing. When you frame the image you make it appealing to the eye. In the editing process afterward you can add cool effects. Here are some examples. There's almost no limit to the possibilities when getting creative with photos…


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I will discuss two current projects on automatically extracting certain types of lexical-semantic information in settings wherein we can rely neither on annotations nor existing knowledge resources to provide us with clues. The name of the game in such settings is to find and leverage auxiliary sources of information.
Why is it that if you *know* I'll give a silly talk, it follows that you know I'll give a talk, whereas if you *doubt* I'll give a good talk, it doesn't follow that you doubt I'll give a talk? This pair of examples shows that the word "doubt" exhibits a special but prevalent kind of behavior known as downward entailingness --- the licensing of reasoning from supersets to subsets, so to speak, but not vice versa. The first project I'll describe is to identify words that are downward entailing, a task that promises to enhance the performance of systems that engage in textual inference, and one that is quite challenging since it is difficult to characterize these items as a class and no corpus with downward-entailingness annotations exists. We are able to surmount these challenges by utilizing some insights from the linguistics literature regarding the relationship between downward entailing operators and what are known as negative polarity items --- words such as "ever" or the idiom "have a clue" that tend to occur only in negative contexts. A cross-linguistic analysis indicates some potentially interesting connections to findings in linguistic typology.
That previous paragraph was quite a mouthful, wasn't it? Wouldn't it be nice if it were written in plain English that was easier to understand? The second project I'll talk about, which has the eventual aim to make it possible to automatically simplify text, aims to learn lexical-level simplifications, such as "work together" for "collaborate". (This represents a complement to prior work, which focused on syntactic transformations, such as passive to active voice.) We exploit edit histories in Simple English Wikipedia for this task. This isn't as simple (ahem) as it might at first seem because Simple English Wikipedia and the usual Wikipedia are far from a perfect parallel corpus and because many edits in Simple Wikipedia do not constitute simplifications. We consider both explicitly modeling different kinds of operations and various types of bootstrapping, including as clues the comments Wikipedians sometimes leave when they edit.
Joint work with Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, Rick Ducott, Bo Pang, and Mark Yatskar.
(pdf slides)


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St Peter's Boys Designing Solutions for Problems
Over the past few years we have attempted to share a teaching philosophy with parents that focuses on activities that demonstrate choice of learning, self-management, self-assessment and the promotion of intrinsic motivation. This pedagogy has been combined with our inquiry based approach and our Flexible Learning Programme to create a curriculum that, in addition to the very important core skill knowledge that our children receive, promotes the development of a love for innovation that goes beyond formal classroom time.
I would like to share the innovative robot that was designed and built by one of our boys, Nirvan Lachman, over the recent long weekend. I believe that it illustrates the type of thinking and use of resources that we aim to promote through our particular brand of teaching.
Nirvan identified the need to address one of our 5 Gs, "Grounds" through the collection of debris and litter. He decided that this could be done using robotics, coding and the development of Artificial Intelligence solutions. Nirvan combined Lego pieces, 3-D printed components and an angle grinder disc to create a prototype scale model of a robot that will not only be able to chop debris into "bite-sized" chunks, but can also be controlled using mobile technology from a remote location.
Just speaking to Nirvan about his creation, one gets the sense that he is already developing it further with a strong Artificial Intelligence component attached. We posted a segment of Nirvan's demonstration of his invention to me on the School Facebook sight and it has enjoyed well over 2000 "Likes" already. Please go to St Peter's Boys Prep Facebook page to see the video.
Nirvan's innovative thinking and practical application of ideas to solve a problem epitomises what we are trying to create in our boys. Most importantly, he has had an absolute ball building his robot and is able to achieve a great sense of satisfaction through his own evaluation of his success. I congratulate Nirvan on his outstanding innovation and look forward to seeing him playing a leading role in AI development in years to come.


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Some fine individual has posted a super HD video of FLAG playing some songs, including No More, Wasted, American Waste, and many others, at Irving Plaza in New York City back in September.
As you probably know, the members of FLAG and Henry Rollins were recently sued on grounds of copyright infringement by Black Flag founder Greg Ginn. The judge wasn't amused and the case was dismissed.


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Have you ever walked past unsafe acts at work?
You may be wondering what can even be labeled as "unsafe acts."
It's fairly simple in theory. An unsafe act is anything that deviates from a generally recognized safe way of doing the act. When you do you increase the probability for an accident.
We generally think of such things as:
- Improper use of personal protective equipment [PPE]
- Failure to use PPE – either willingly or through lack of proper care
- Use of defective equipment
- Removal, or failure to use safety devices
- Operation of equipment at unsafe speeds, and
- The operation of equipment without proper authorization, training, and/or qualifications
As you can tell, these are all acts that relate to an employee in a physical way. But, in this article, I want you to think of 'unsafe acts' from the perspective of psychological safety. You may have guessed that these acts threatening psychological safety are in direct correlation to bullying and harassment.
But before we get there, let's go back to the world of physical safety.
It has been found that as many as 88% of all workplace injuries are caused by unsafe acts committed by employees.
The following factors have been found to be contributing causes to these injuries:
- High or increased workloads
- Pressures of production
- Insufficient workforce levels
- Ergonomic hazards
- Improperly maintained or repaired equipment
- Employer's failure to identify potential hazards, or
- Inadequate training or complete lack thereof
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
I'm sure it does, unfortunately.
But how can we best counteract those common unsafe acts? By having an effective safety program!
The Three E's of Safety at Work
The important elements of an effective safety program are often referred to as the 3 E's:
- Education
- Engineering
- Enforcement
Education means training employees in relation to:
- Proper procedures
- Job responsibilities
- Safety rules and safety awareness
- Expectations that they will work safely
- Defining unsafe acts
Engineering deals with finding safety hazards, more specifically:
- Identifying and correcting the hazards
- Proper selection of equipment and facilities
- Daily safety checks of equipment
- Self-inspection of facilities
- Implementing corrective action to reduce accidents
And Enforcement of safety rules conquers the following ideas:
- Rules are not effective unless they are enforced
- The importance of progressive discipline for repeaters
- Re-educating employees when needed
This brings me back to my very first question: Have you ever walked past an unsafe act?
When we see an unsafe act, we should have been taught to immediately intervene to stop it. Before the worker gets hurts or hurts someone else!
Unsafe Acts in a Workplace can be Psychological Acts
So, now let's get back to the idea of this not being a 'physical' act but rather a 'psychological' one.
Does any of the above change just because we are talking non-physical behavior?
In truth: It shouldn't matter at all.
The important elements of an effective psychological safety program (A.K.A. an organization's Respectful Workplace Program) can also be referred to in the same way as the original 3 E's:
- Education
- Engineering
- Enforcement
Education, in this case, means training the employees in relation to:
- The Respectful Workplace Policy
- Job responsibilities
- Safety rules and safety awareness (the expectation that they treat each other with respect and dignity)
- Explaining your expectations that they will work safely (treating each other with respect)
- Defining unsafe acts (such as bullying and harassment)
Engineering means finding safety hazards:
- Identifying and correcting the hazards (disrespectful behavior)
- Daily safety checks of equipment (regular demonstrations of civil/safe behavior towards coworkers and others)
- Implementing corrective action to reduce accidents. (Apologizing to someone when we have done something that offended them)
And Enforcement of safety rules still remains as:
- Rules are not effective unless they are enforced
- Progressive discipline for repeaters
- Re-educating employees when needed
The Intervention of an Unsafe Act
But back to the intervention of an unsafe act.
Think about how the suggestions would differ if we were dealing with a psychologically unsafe act.
First off, there are standard guidelines about how a person should approach the worker:
- Stay calm and take the worker aside.
- Be sure not to let your body language say otherwise – such as a tense posture or glaring.
- Calmly mention the unsafe act that you witnessed and talk about what could have happened if you didn't intervene. Ask them to suggest a safer way to do the job.
- Obtain the worker's agreement to work more safely in the future.
- Engage the worker in a general discussion of safety. Maybe ask if they have any safety concerns.
- Always thank the employee for their time.
Reinforce Positive Safe Behavior
Don't forget to actually acknowledge those who ARE working safely and behaving in a way that adds positively to the workplace. This has the impact of increasing worker involvement and commitment to safety.
What are some other points to remember when you are dealing with unsafe acts that apply to both physical safety as well as psychological safety?
- Keep consistent. If you address unsafe behaviors only some of the time, you will be sending mixed messages.
- Always positively reinforce safe behavior or it may disappear.
- Don't jump to conclusions. Unsafe behavior is not always deliberate. The worker may be tired, distracted, rushed, or insufficiently trained.
- If you continue to see unsafe behavior (or have it reported), talk about the potential consequences of such continued behavior. If safety rules aren't followed, and additional training, education, and other informal measures don't have the desired impact, progressive discipline may be needed next.
- Be sure to always document the discussions and any related actions.
I hope that I have encouraged you to think of safety in more than just the traditional sense.
Safety is our Number One Job
Safety is critical to healthy workplaces and must be Job #1 for all of us. This kind of attitude will ensure that we are showing up and behaving in a safe way at work. We acknowledge and thank those that do likewise while holding accountable those who act unsafely.
Remember that definition of an unsafe act?
An unsafe act is an act that deviates from a generally recognized safe way or specified method of doing a job and which increases the probabilities for an accident.
I wish you a safe day, both physically and psychologically!


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Sample Personal Statement
- Details
- Category: Personal Statement
For anybody who is talented and ever passionate about being the best at something, whether it is in sports, music, athletics, theater, art or any other activity, it is a painful experience to come face to face with someone who is better than you. This is an experience I have lived in college soccer.
While I was never a great athlete, I enjoyed moments of success as a soccer player in high school, mostly because I am 6'9" tall. On three occasions during my junior seasons, my high school soccer team qualified for the regional championships. At the beginning of my senior season, I was named the school's player of the year. I was again named the regional player of the year towards the end of my senior season. Needless to say, I had incredible excitement about how my soccer career might unfold in college. I received several offers from small colleges and universities in California. I was finally lured by a soccer scholarship from the Testamont College, based in California.
Soon after arriving at the college, I realized that it was not the best place for me despite the blessing of a fully-funded scholarship. I yearned for more competitiveness, an environment that would challenge me personally and as a student. As I considered which colleges would fulfill my dreams both academically and talent-wise, I turned to Seaton College. It is located a few miles from my home town and is known for its strong sports programs as well as rigorous academic stature.
It was exactly the college I was looking for. Moreover, Seaton College's center-forward had suffered a severe injury on the knee and decided to quit soccer indefinitely. It is at this point that I made up my mind to attend the Seaton College. At the end of my freshman year, I met the Seaton College coaching staff who assured that I would be their starting center-back the following season. I decided to take a job at the college's sports facility during the summer so as to train every day after work. I spent countless hours over the months lifting weights, running on the track, and sharpening my shooting and dribbling skills. By early-August, I was in the best physical condition and ready to kick-off the new soccer season. Then something that would greatly affect my college soccer career over the next two years happened.
I was busy on the treadmill in the gym when I looked up to see a familiar person standing next to me. It was Tom, the center-forward who had decided to quit football because of knee injury. He had lost more than twenty five pounds over the summer and was on anti-inflammatory pain medication. At once I knew he had not given up playing soccer and would be ready to play the next season.
I felt a little disappointed. I was gripped by uncertainty as the new season approached. Tom's return made me feel that my had work all this time had been for nothing. However, I realized I had improved a lot during our pre-season practices. I knew I was ready to compete with Tom for the starting position. I was disappointed. I never got the chance to challenge Tom. I was relegated to the reserve team from day one. This crushed me inside. While I trained daily for over three hours, Tom could only go for twenty minutes or less because of his knee. Even though his talent irrefutable, I felt it was a waste of time to train daily only to have a teammate who never practiced start all the games.
At the beginning of the season, Tom averaged two goals and one assist per game. He proceeded in the same fashion for the rest of the season. He continued to get the public recognition during the games while I trained for three hours on a daily basis. By the end of the season, Tom had scored thirty five goals and averaged at three goals and two assists per game. He was named the national young player of the year. On the other hand, I had only scored twelve goals and no assist.
As the following season began, I thought of quitting soccer altogether. I felt that I was not ready to train so hard only to watch someone else get all the glory. When I was finally selected to play in the first weeks of the new season, I realized that I was enjoying the game not for the rewards but for the love I had for the sport and working with others as a team. The environment became more enjoyable. I realized that while I still wanted to have more minutes to play, it was of less importance to me now. As I was still learning, Tom again won more accolades, receiving the national soccer team call-up.
Tom will graduate this spring. I will hopefully be the starting center-forward for Seaton College men's soccer team next season. This is however, not as important to me as it was before. I now appreciate that more than the honor of glory and awards, soccer has taught me about myself. I have learned the importance of being in competitive environments even if am not the most talented. My soccer experience has also taught me to work as a team towards a common goal and to enjoy intense preparation. I have learned to put aside personal rewards and recognition in such situations.
Above all, I have learned to remain persistent when faced with disappointments. These are life lessons I hope to apply in a career as an editor in a leading news agency. The need to work towards a common goal as a team, the intense preparation, and the ability to perform without expecting personal rewards are the lessons I have learned from soccer over the past two years. I want to apply these to my life and editorial career.